Tag Archives: consumer

lead and you…part two

no, not recess - peanut butter! The media circus has come and left town since we last considered the impact on youth powersports as a result of the Consumer Products Safety Commission’s interpretation of how much lead should kids be allowed to eat. (Hint: none.)

Malcolm Smith’s protest drew the attention of SoCal’s news outlets and a nice mention in USA Today, along with links on bike blogs throughout the land. Which got me to thinking, how much lead is too much? For instance, working my way through the University of Florida included a stint at the Gainesville Sun. This was at the dawn of what would briefly be known as cold type, or the sunset of hot type. Continue reading →

common sense…just isn’t

free the tykes! let 'me ride, we say Cycle World editor David Edwards bells the cat with his web preview of May’s editorial on the unintended consequences of the Consumer Products Safety Commission’s ban on lead-containing products used by children.

Meanwhile, offroad star and industry icon Malcolm Smith has scheduled a media event/protest/back at ya for Thursday, March 19, at his dealership to highlight the problem faced by hundreds of dealers and thousands of enthusiasts nationwide as a result of the lead ban. Continue reading →

made in china fallout continues

No sooner had we wondered out loud about the problematic issue posed by the brand extension “made in china” than a report by Bloomberg News pointed towards a call for mandatory Federal regulation and oversight of the domestic atv market by an industry that’d fiercely opposed any such meddling in prior years. What changed?

Internet sales. Home delivery. And a tripling in unit sales to around 400,000 in 2006 for a Chinese product which costs roughly a third of their better branded counterparts. Who, by the way, saw same period sales slip by about 30,000 machines to 750,000 atvs. Some might see a trend at work.
Continue reading →

the new china syndrome

Last week’s news about yet another defective Chinese export — this time, automobile tires sold by New Jersey importer Foreign Tire Sales — begins to point to a potentially serious trouble spot for the powersports market.

The tires in question suffer from tread separation as a result of a glue strip left out in the manufacturing process. The product joins a list of recent stories that include poison toothpaste and toy train sets, adulterated seafood and deadly pet food.

What’s this got to do with powersports? Several years ago, in a very limited product category, one distributor went to it’s Chinese vendor for a wide tire tranny extension. Cost effective: sure. At least partly because the critical heat treat portion of the process was left out, resulting in a very expensive stripping of the splines from the main shaft after about 50 feet on the highway.

It’s safe to say this aftermarket industry would be on life support without the economic advantage provided by Chinese manufacturing. It’s also self-evident that the continuing pr disasters of Chinese exports as a whole could very easily taint the powersports product segment.

Obviously, what’s needed here is a quick application of Good Housekeeping’s Seal of Approval. It may not be out of the question for our industry to perform a sourcing check to assure consumers our products are safe — ahead of the curve.