DETROIT — Attaching radio frequency tags to tires could help better target recalls and provide an early warning system of defects, an executive of a firm that produces the tags says.

        “It would be the difference between a shotgun approach and a rifle approach,” said Bill Hoffman, manager of automotive business development for Intermec Inc., an Everett, Wash., electronics company.

        The metallic tags look more like strips, which manufacturers would attach to the inside of the tires.

        Contained in the tags would be a memory chip and a radio frequency transmitter. The memory chip would be programmed with information regarding the plant where the tire was made, the date and time it was produced, and the tire's dimen sions.

        The information is also downloaded into a computer to form a database “marrying” every tire to the vehicle on which it's installed.

        With such a database, Mr. Hoffman said, it would be easier to target recalls to individual vehicles or tires, rather than blanket recalls.

        “If you look at actual failures, they're usually a lot-type based failure,” Mr. Hoffman said. “Now I can track between this time and that time between number X and number Y and probably find the ones that are bad.”

        That type of information may have worked to head off much earlier a situation such as last year's Firestone tire recall, Mr. Hoffman said.

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Radio tags may help track tires