Foreign Tire Sales now says it is recalling only 250,000 Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber-produced tires. Originally, FTS and NHTSA estimated that 450,000 tires had to be recalled due to concerns over tread separations.

In a letter to NHTSA, FTS said its has narrowed the group of questioned tires. The impacted tires were produced in three phases, FTS said, but only those produced in the second phase were missing gum strips. Tires produced without the gum strips layers between the steel belts, FTS claims, have a greater propensity to suffer tread separations.

As a result, FTS said, its cost to recall the tires will be reduced to around $20 million from the nearly $80 million it had previously stated.

Meanwhile, Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber claims its export business has not been impacted by the recall and surrounding controversy. “Our exports to the U.S. are as good as before. Nothing needs to be changed (in production) as there’s no quality problem with our products,” Xu Youming, director of the legal department of Hangzhou Zhongce, was quoted as saying in an AFX report this morning.