term_exists not working in Javascript

I finally got my back-end to create the wheel codes from the checked taxonomies in the add custom post admin area.

Now, I want to add that tire code to the wheel_type taxonomy.

The below code ran great, until I added the if statement under //Add code to Taxonomy

Now nothing is working, but I get nothing in the error console.

I figure it must be a stupid syntax mistake – can anyone help me out?

Or am I missing something else?

jQuery('#replace').click(function(){
 		//get tire code and name
 		var code = jQuery('input[name="tire_code"]').val();
 		var name = jQuery('input[name="tire_name"]').val();
 		var bname = jQuery('input[name="tire_bname"]').val();

 		         alert(code + " + " + name + " + " + bname);

 		//get tire brand
 		var tirebran = jQuery('#tire_brandchecklist').find(":checked").parent('label').text();
 		tirebran = jQuery.trim( tirebran );

                //Add code to Taxonomy

                if( term_exists( code, wheel_type ){
 		     continue;
                     }
 	        else
 		     {
                     wp_insert_term( code, wheel_type );
                     }

 		//update title
 		var title = code + ' : ' + name + ' tires';
 		if(tirebran!=''){
 			title += ' with ' + bname + ' letters';
 		}
 		jQuery('input[name="post_title"]').focus().val(title);
 	});
 	//-->
	</script>