Goodyear launches DuraGrip City Tyre

City driving, with its constant starting and stopping, places its own unique pressures upon a vehicle’s mechanicals, and also its tyres. With so many drivers undertaking most or all or their motoring in these conditions, it stands to reason that a demand exists for tyres specifically designed for city traffic. One such product is Goodyear’s DuraGrip, released in March 2007, a tyre its maker promotes as designed especially to cope with constant stopping and starting in heavy traffic conditions.

This city car tyre features a new silica compound that Goodyear claims improves mileage, strengthens the tyre’s wet performance and provides shorter braking distances. The tread pattern is asymmetrical with a closed outside design and two continuous outside ribs to maximise traction on dry surfaces. Wet weather handling is enhanced through the spaces created by the tread’s open design and circumferential grooves, both of which maximise contact area in situations when aquaplaning is a risk factor. To address the issue of lateral stability Goodyear have built stiff blocks into the DuraGrip’s outside shoulder.

The DuraGrip also incorporates a Goodyear patented waffle blade design it calls the Three Dimensional Block Interlocking System (3D-BIS). Goodyear has employed 3D-BIS in a number of its winter tyres, including the UltraGrip 7, and during testing the tyremaker reports attaining a significant improvement in wet and try handling performance as a result of the increased (compared with traditional bladed tyres) number of blades used. With more edges to ‘bite’ the road the tyre will perform more confidently on wet roads – and Goodyear say that the tyre’s handling characteristics are retained without compromise.

Hans Vrijsen, Goodyear marketing director for Europe, believes that the market is ripe for tyres like the Duragrip. “The days of small, cheap cars with compromises on design, quality or performance are long gone,” he commented. “They [drivers] want optimal performance and reliability in their vehicle, and of course tyres play a crucial role in fulfilling this demand. With DuraGrip, Goodyear has developed a tyre that is specifically made to provide consumers with optimal performance during city driving.”

Goodyear claim that the testing conducted upon the Duragrip prior to its release, both in testing facilities and on public roads, showed the DuraGrip to perform “exceptionally well” in tests involving city driving conditions, such as braking, tread-wear, aquaplaning and noise emission. Hans Vrijsen concludes: “Ultimately, the performance of a tyre determines its commercial success, and we are confident that DuraGrip really offers what city drivers want: high mileage without compromising on tyre performance.”

The DuraGrip is available in the following sizes:

165/80R13 83 T
155/70R13 75 T
165/70R13 79 T
165/70R13 83 T XL
175/70R13 82 T
165/70R14 81 T
165/70R14 85 T XL
165/70R14C 89/87 R
175/70R14 84 T
175/70R14 88 T XL
185/70R14 88 T
165/65R13 77 T
155/65R14 75 T
165/65R14 79 T
175/65R14C 90/88 T
175/65R14 82 T
175/65R14 86 T XL
185/65R14 86 T
165/65R15 81 T
195/65R15 91 T XL
195/65R15 95 T
185/60R14 82 T