EPA Withdraws Approval of 74,000 Made-in-China Wildfire Motors Vehicles

Dennis Chung
by Dennis Chung

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it is voiding its approval of up to 74,000 motorcycles and ATVs imported from China because of incomplete or falsified certification information. The vehicles were imported by Ohio-based Snyder Technology, Inc. and Snyder Computer Systems, Inc. and sold under the brand Wildfire Motors Corporation.

The EPA says it issued certificates of conformity to Wildfire Motors for numerous on- and off-road motorcycles and ATVs from 2006 to 2012. These certificates, issued to all vehicles before they can be imported or sold in the U.S., are issued to manufacturers and importers after they submit emission testing data showing their products meet federal emission standards. Of particular concern are emission levels for pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and total hydrocarbons (HC) which contribute to smog and soot.

Following a lengthy investigation, the EPA alleges the Wildfire Motors’ applications for certification contained misleading information and must therefore be voided. The EPA also alleges the Chinese manufacturers failed to accurately test the emissions of Wildfire Motors’ vehicles.

The EPA’s annual certification test results and data reports list several manufacturers of vehicles sold as Wildfire Motors products: Taixing Sandi Motorcycle Co. Ltd., Zhejiang Jiajue Apollo Vehicle Manufacture Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Zhufeng Huawin Motorcycle Co., Ltd., though it isn’t clear which of these manufacturers were involved in the EPA’s investigation.

The offending vehicles may no longer be legally imported or sold in the U.S. Consumers who own any of the vehicles in question are not responsible for the importer or manufacturers’ alleged wrongdoings and are allowed to continue using their vehicles.

[Source: EPA]

Dennis Chung
Dennis Chung

Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.

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