[camarojoe]

Personally, I would bet there was no "removing" of the labels at all... The tire companies were making large batches (orders) of tires specifically for factory assembly line purposes, and therefore wouldn't have even bothered putting the stickers on them, as I agree these labels were made for tires to go to retail outlets, tire shops, etc. I also talked to some guys who work at a dealership doing new car check-in's for some 20+ years, and they said they have never seen a car come off the transporter with any stickers on the tires, and I doubt there was anyone at the factory in charge of picking the stickers off the treads of new tires as they mounted them.