A New Jersey tire distributor yesterday recalled 255,000 defective Chinese tires as concerns grow over the safety of Chinese goods.

Foreign Tire Sales of Union, N.J., said the tires lack a safety feature called a "gum strip," a wedge of rubber that fits between steel belts in tires to make them more durable.

The tires were sold from early 2004 to mid-2006 as replacements for use on sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and vans. They were sold under the brand names Westlake, Compass and YKS.

The defect came to light in Philadelphia last year when a rear tire on a cargo van blew apart and wrapped around the axle, flipping the van into a sideways slide. Two people were killed and a third person was injured.

Foreign Tire Sales blamed Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber, China's second-largest tire manufacturer. Foreign Tire said the Chinese company changed the design of the tire without the U.S. company's knowledge. The companies are in a legal battle over the issue.

In a written statement, Hangzhou Zhongce said it has not found evidence that the tires at issue contain any structural defects or are missing any safety features.

Vehicle-safety advocates blamed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Robert Schull, Public Citizen's deputy director of auto safety and regulatory policy, said the agency's early-warning defect database should have raised a red flag. He said NHTSA has resisted some public disclosure because it treats some data as confidential business information that is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

"They want to be able to continue to sit on their hands when information is presented to them and not be accountable to the public," Schull said.

NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson said, "There was nothing in the early-warning data submissions that suggested any sort of safety issues with those tires."

More information about the tire recall can be found at www.foreigntire.com/recallinfo.html.

About 1,100 tires were sold in Virginia.