MONTREAL – Dorel Industries’ (TSX:DII.B) reputation took another hit Friday after transportation safety agencies in Canada and the United States disclosed a “potential problem” with nearly 30,000 infant car seats.

The problem involved a faulty spring that could cause Maxi-Cosi Mico infant seats made in 2008 to not lock fully when installed into their removable base.

With no consumer complaints or reported injuries, the recall on its own is a hiccup for the world’s largest car seat manufacturer.

But, it is the latest of a half dozen recalls of seats, cribs and baby gates over the past few months has raised questions about Dorel’s design and manufacturing of children’s products.

“It’s not like we have a systemic quality control issue, we don’t,” spokesman Rick Leckner said in an interview.

The Montreal-based company uses hundreds of quality control people, including 200 in China, to ensure its products are safe. However, occasionally a few problems slip through, Leckner said.

He said Dorel works hard to make sure that its products are as fool proof as possible, especially because they involve the safety of children.

Industry observers fear the recall could spook parents from purchasing Dorel products and have a cumulative effect on the company’s reputation.

It’s a risk that Dorel is aware of as it reassures parents while attempting to avoid undue panic when it sends recall notifications.

“You’re reputation is your No. 1 asset and you have to do everything you can to protect it and it starts with making the best possible product,” Leckner.

He said the industry also has to do a better job explaining to parents about the proper assembly and use of products to prevent injuries.

Testing by Transport Canada found that the seat could separate from its base during a collision.

It said the car seats, manufactured in Columbus, Ind., between March 8 and June 28, 2008, can still be used but owners should check that a release handle is pushed in properly and fully locked.

Dorel will notify registered owners and send a repair kit which includes two replacement springs.

The recall involves less than 7,000 seats in Canada and 22,850 in the United States. The company will repair the 400 seats still sitting on store shelves.

“Fortunately there have been no incidents at all, no injuries and this is purely a precautionary move that has been taken,” said Leckner.

Dorel shares closed at $31.29, up 11 cents Friday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

BEIJING – Three dairy plant managers and one milk powder dealer in central China have been arrested for allegedly selling milk products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, shortly after the government launched a 10-day crackdown.

The chemical, which is used to manufacture plastics and fertilizer, became a household name in China in 2008, when six children died and 300,000 were sickened after drinking tainted baby formula. Dozens of officials, dairy executives and farmers were punished, and Beijing vowed to implement stricter safety measures and step up inspections of the industry.

Lekang Dairy Company general manager Zhang Wenxue and vice general managers Zhu Shuming and Tong Tianhu have been charged with manufacturing and selling tainted milk powder in the latest crackdown, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

Ma Shuanglin, a milk powder dealer who worked with Lekang in distributing the suspected tainted products, was also arrested, Xinhua said. The dairy, which was among the companies named in the 2008 scandal, is located in Weinan city in the central province of Shaanxi.

The report said the men are suspected of overseeing an operation in which untainted milk powder was mixed with melamine-infused powder. Melamine can be added to diluted milk products as a way to fool quality control tests for protein levels. This allows unscrupulous dairies to stretch their profits.

Melamine can have dire effects when ingested, including causing kidney stones and kidney failure.

Concerns about tainted milk products peaked again early this year after authorities in Shanghai said they secretly investigated a dairy for nearly a year before announcing it had been producing tainted products.

The case was especially troubling because Shanghai Panda Dairy Co. was one of the 22 dairies named by China’s product safety authority in the 2008 scandal, with its products having among the highest levels of melamine.

As part of the current 10-day crackdown, “all melamine-tainted milk products will be found and destroyed,” Xinhua quoted Health Minister Chen Zhu as saying.

In January, tainted dairy products from three companies that had somehow made it back on store shelves were pulled from more than a dozen convenience stores around the southern province of Guizhou.

In December, the general manager of a dairy in northern Shaanxi province and two employees were accused of producing and selling more than five tons of tainted milk powder. Xinhua reported that none of the tainted powder had reached the market.

Melamine-tainted milk products were also recently found in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shandong, Liaoning and Hebei.