Yokohama Introduces New High-Performance Tyre A 539

Yokohama Rubber with head office in Tokyo has become the fifth largest tyre manufacturer in the world since Sumitomo Rubber Industries sold part of the Dunlop activities to Goodyear. The company has five factories in Japan, two for car, two for commercial vehicle and one for commercial off-the-road tyres. In USA Yokohama produces car tyres and operates the so-called GTY commercial vehicle tyre factory in Mount Vernon, a joint enterprise with Continental-General and Toyo.

In the last few years Yokohama has also manufactured tyres in the Philippines, and then there is a manufacturing facility for two-wheeler tyres, mainly bicycles, in Vietnam. Yokohama possesses its own large test track, which in many respects resembles the Contidrom near Hanover. Winter tyres are tested on another test track, “T*MARY” in Takasu.

“RADIC”, the Research and Development Integrated Center, in the heart of Tokyo is truly impressive and obviously occupies a key role in Yokohama. More than 1000 engineers and technicians are engaged in ever new projects day in, day out. RADIC certainly impresses with all imaginable recent research facilities.

Last year the company invested well in excess of 100 million US $ in research and development.The group, which was founded in 1917, generated a turnover of 3.6 billion US $ in 1999, 2.

5 billion of them or 70 p.c. in tyres.

The remaining 30 p.c. came from a wide variety of technical rubber products.

Currently the group employs about 12,000 people. Whether Yokohama is on the way to, or has a realistic chance of, becoming a global player – an idea elaborated to the German trade press at a press conference in Tokyo at the end of March – is difficult to say. During Asia’s “bubble economy” of the last decade the group, with its exceptional dependency on the Japanese market, had great difficulties in holding its own.

During the last five or six years profit figures have been extremely modest. While the company has been able to defend its number two position behind the truly enormous Bridgestone in the domestic Japanese market, exports to Europe are still limited, at about 2.5 million car tyres.

The key European role is held by Yokohama GmbH of Düsseldorf, Germany. The company has succeeded in placing Yokohama tyres in niches such as Porsche cars, Brabus, Gemballa, Arden, Oettinger and others. The positioning of Yokohama as “tuning tyres” can be said to be a success.

Recently attempts have been made to sell commercial vehicle tyres in Germany, but both efforts and achievements are still quite modest. And the Japanese can definitely not be satisfied with the result of the latest ADAC summer tyre test, which – to put it mildly – leaves much room for improvement.With the introduction of the new A 539, currently available in almost 20 sizes and from the end of April/beginning of May in more than 30, the German management hopes to make a big step forward.

The tyre was specially developed for sporty motorists, who nevertheless do not want to sacrifice comfort and quiet running. Computer simulation was used to produce an asymmetrical, spiral tread pattern design to provide sportiness, quiet running and excellent cornering stability on dry and especially on wet roads. It was this last specification, where Yokohama tyres frequently betrayed weaknesses.

The homogeneous rubber compound of the A 539, responsible for good grip in wet conditions, is based on the Zeruma technology, a Yokohama-patented silica mixing technology, by which process, the manufacturer says, the silicates are “ideally distributed” in the tyre. The unique tread pattern lives up to all its promises. With its excellent drainage, almost every member of the trade press testing it praised the enormous progress made in aquaplaning.

These journalists were given the opportunity of testing the tyre in tough comparability tests against competitors’ products at the company’s own test site in Daigo, north of Tokyo. Slanting grooves in the tread pattern guarantee optimum drainage for straight-line driving whereas drainage in cornering has been made much more efficient than in any of its predecessors by the spiral-shaped grooves in the tread. Although the A 539 is a sporty tyre, Yokohama stresses that other qualities have not been neglected.

Four tread blocks of varying sizes, arranged at different angles in the shoulder area, prevent high noise levels, whereas the different depths of the grooves provide even wear and quiet running. The A 539 will be available in series 60, 55, 50, 45 and 40, in speed categories H, V and Z and in sizes 165/60 R 12 to 235/40 ZR 17..