Premium brake brand, Textar has launched PROriginal, a new safety seal for its packaging to better protect its customers from counterfeit goods.

Starting with passenger car packaging, all Textar products will be secured with a seal that must be removed before opening. The seal features a QR code and a twelve digit, alphanumeric code, which are both uniquely associated with the product. This allows the customer to verify authenticity by scanning the QR code with the Textar Brakebook app (free for iOS and Android) or another QR code scanner. Alternatively, the alphanumeric code can be entered on Fighting the Fakes website (www.fightingthefakes.com.)

Once the code has been entered or scanned, the customer receives an immediate response to advise if the part they have is an original Textar product. If the customer has an invalid code or one that has already been scanned, then it is highly likely that the product is a counterfeit and TMD Friction should be informed.

Marco Loth, Vice President Category Management & Engineering at TMD Friction, said, “Counterfeits are becoming an ever greater threat in the brake industry. They often contain prohibited materials such as asbestos or do not offer the same performance or comfort as original brake pads. Poor brake performance can quickly lead to road traffic accidents and we therefore advise users to only fit brake pads by a trusted garage and to rely on brand quality, as this is the only way to have one-hundred percent confidence that the brakes will work when it really matters.”

TMD Friction invests more than €30-million per year into the research and development of its high-grade brake pads. Quality and reliability are the cornerstones that customers of TMD Friction can rely on. In order to protect its customers from counterfeits and take a clear stand against product piracy, the brake specialist is taking a number of measures to ensure its products are hallmarked accordingly and forgery-proof.