BIPAVER Encourages Technical Co-operation

BIPAVER, the European Retread Manufacturers Association, has announced that it has taken substantial further steps towards Pan-European co-operation in the retreading industry following the Association’s General Assembly, held in May during the Reifen 2006 exhibition in Essen, Germany.

The meeting was the first general meeting of BIPAVER since the Association was re-located to the Netherlands at the start of the current year and was exceptionally well attended. BIPAVER Secretary Ruud Spuijbroek commented; “We are delighted with the progress made within BIPAVER over the last year and the excellent attendance here shows that we have brought co-operation between European retreaders to a new level”.

The meeting was used in particular to outline the extensive work carried out within BIPAVER’s Technical Commission. Lennart Lindström, who this year has been appointed by BIPAVER to represent the Association’s interests in Geneva, pointed out that there had been three main topics dealt with by the Technical Commission, these being:

ECE 108 and 109, which becomes mandatory on September 13; tyre width and the securing of an amendment to ECE 109 to assure that tyres with kerbing bands do not fall outside the tolerances set within the Regulation and the issue of Noise Regulations.

Although BIPAVER had initially sought to obtain an amendment to ECE Regulation 117 to allow retreaders to seek voluntary noise certification, it had now been agreed that this course would most likely result in mandatory application within a short period of time. BIPAVER’s agreed position is now that the best policy is to focus on technical demonstrations to show that retreads are less noisy than new tyres and to make sure that there are no limits to retreaders in the regulations.

As a result of the efforts of the Technical Commission, BIPAVER has now drawn up a four-point action plan for the coming year, namely; to clarify in Brussels the use of retreads in relation to Directive 2001/43 EC – Noise and new heavy vehicle type approval and to assure proper communication of BIPAVER’s message.

Secondly, to continue to lobby for modifications to ECE 109 in relation to section widths, thirdly to investigate limiting national laws on the fitting of new and retread tyres on vehicles and, finally, to clarify with together with the BRV (Germany’s tyre dealers and retreaders association and a BIPAVER member) the new German law on winter tyre usage

“BIPAVER has made major progress in these technical areas and thanks are due to the hard working members of the Technical Commission”, said Ruud Spuijbroek. “As a result of their efforts we have managed to foster a new period of co-operation between the various bodies representing Europe’s retreading companies. We now hope to expand membership of BIPAVER to include those European states currently not in membership as well as key suppliers to the industry.”

Retreaders’ Associations from ten European countries are currently in membership of BIPAVER, these being the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The United States is a liaison member of BIPAVER, whilst Bandag, Gummiwerk Kraiburg and Marangoni are Supplier members.