Goodyear Shows New Products in Essen

At this year’s Reifen exhibition in Essen Goodyear showed all its new products and most of the highlights from the current product portfolio. The focal point of the presentations on the Goodyear stand were product novelties for the SUV segment but also tyres for the PC segment. However farm and OTR tyres were also shown as were forward-looking developments. In the truck tyre segment Goodyear presented its new RHS 2, which is a new specialist tyre for the steering axle.

The trend towards SUVs can be found everywhere in Europe these days. With three innovative products Goodyear paid tribute to this development and delivered tyres that are especially directed at sporty drivers. Together with the high performance Eagle F1 SUV (for summer) and the UltraGrip (for winter) Goodyear has now launched its latest Wrangler F1 (WRL-2) which is a completely renewed successor to Goodyear’s 4×4 classic that has been successfully sold on the markets for years.

For the development of the Wrangler F1 (WRL-2) engineers used the knowledge they had gathered while developing the Eagle F1 passenger car tyre. It is this PC tyre where the Wrangler F1 (WRL-2) borrowed its long tread ribs from. This has led to the shortening of the breaking distance on wet roads, the manufacturer explains in Essen. Furthermore, the new Wrangler F1 (WRL-2) features the latest generation tread compound and thus offers a considerably lower noise level compared to its predecessor.

It is not only the new Wrangler F1 that showed how the tread pattern can be successfully advanced. The same is true for the Vector 5+ all-season passenger car tyre. This all-round talent has been given a new tread compound as well and is said to demonstrate better performance in winter disciplines compared to its predecessor, Goodyear continues. In this respect the Vector again shows its special position among all-season tyres. In particular with its snow-flake symbol, making the new Vector fit for all winter conditions.

In the winter tyre segment Goodyear already has two benchmark tyres with its test winning UltraGrip 7 and the UltraGrip for SUVs. Goodyear now offers another high performance product for high-speed driving in the form of the UltraGrip Performance.

Absolutely new on the market is the RHS 2, a truck tyre for the steering axle. This specialist tyre was shown to the public at Essen for the very first time. And together with this Goodyear’s other truck tyres such as the Metro MCS, the Omnitrac MSS, the Marathon LHS as well as the Marathon LHT were giving a good impression on Goodyear’s truck tyre portfolio.

In the agricultural tyre segment the Goodyear Optitrac DT 824 for drive axle application was setting the standard. The company hopes its Optitrac R+ will surpass this standard. “R+” stands for the additional air the tyres can contain. According to the manufacturer the R+ has a carrying capacity a third bigger than that of its predecessor. It is also said to offer better traction as well without changing the external dimensions of a comparable agricultural tyre.

It is not just BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari or Rolls Royce that use Goodyear’s run-flat tyres. Ford now also uses the Goodyear RunOnFlat system – Europe’s current market leading system, according to the manufacturer – as original equipment for its renewed family Galaxy van and its new S-Max sports van. The high performance 225/50 R17 Excellence ROF (meaning RunOnFlat) is considered to be the optimum OE tyre for Ford’s demanding new family cars. Thanks to new materials and permanent research in this field, Goodyear’s latest run-flat system is offering even more comfort than its predecessor, says the company.

Even heavy off-road cars can use Goodyear’s RunOnFlat system as was shown earlier this year. The run-flat Goodyear Wrangler F1 has proved this capacity during a successful world record attempt on the Panamericana, North and South America’s most famous road. Within two weeks three off-road cars managed to drive 25,000 kilometres thus showing the reliability of the RunOnFlat system even under the most demanding conditions.