Continental Tire North America announced Monday that it is recalling nearly 600,000 size P275/60R17 Contitrac AW and General Grabber AW tires because of problems involving tread separation. The tires were manufactured between March 1999 and October 2000 and have Department of Transportation date codes that range from 109 to 4400.

The recall primarily affects over 100,000 two-wheel drive Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs from model years 2000 and 2001. Linked to at least one Expedition accident in which six people died, the tires were made at Continental's Mayfield, Kentucky plant.

Tread separation on sport utility vehicles has become a major problem for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the last two years. In August 2000, Bridgestone/Firestone announced the recall of 6.5 million Wilderness AT tires after thousands of accidents were linked to tread separations. To date, 271 U.S. traffic fatalities have been linked to defective Firestone tires.