NHTSA provides relief from tire pressure monitoring system rule

Feb. 5, 2003
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has provided NTEA members with much-needed relief from a recently published rule concerning
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has provided NTEA members with much-needed relief from a recently published rule concerning tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS). In June, NHTSA published another Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation Act-based rule that created a new standard for TPMS. The rule called for a phase-in of the equipment. Thus, each manufacturer of vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 lbs. or less, except those vehicles with dual wheels on an axle, would need to ensure that a certain percentage of the vehicles they build would be equipped with the new TPMS each year. Under the rule, as originally published, the phase-in requirements applied to multi-stage manufacturers. NTEA members would have had to either install TPMS on a given percentage of their production or build only on the correct percentage of chassis equipped with TPMS from the chassis manufacturers. The NTEA submitted a request for legal interpretation to NHTSA asking for guidance on whether final-stage manufacturers are required to provide TPMS during the phase-in period, even when the incomplete vehicle is not so equipped by the incomplete (chassis) manufacturer. If that were indeed the case, the NTEA asked that its request be treated as a petition for rulemaking to exclude final-stage manufacturers and alterers from the TPMS phase-in.