Continental to take over ContiTread sales in April

As of April 2012, Continental and Marangoni Group will hand over the promotion and sales of ContiTread pre-cure treads to Continental Tyre Group Ltd in the UK and Ireland. Commenting on this move, commercial marketing manager Tracey Hyem said “the addition of ContiTread to our core sales offering, further underlines Continental's commitment to the ContiLifeCycle concept. Customers will now have one contact for all elements of ContiLifeCycle, and can rely on comprehensive advice to help reduce costs through better fuel consumption and longer tyre life.”

ContiLifeCycle encourages operators to extend tyre life through regrooving and then through either mould cure or pre-cure retreading; Continental’s mould cure product is ContiRe, a full bead to bead hot retread, which is traditionally the most used option in the UK market. However Continental says that ContiTread is also extensively used in the Irish and European transport markets.

“The UK truck market is unusual in that it comprises a number of very large own account fleets,” shared Grant Willman, retread and brand manager at Continental Tyres. “Fleet managers have historically preferred the appearance of the hot cure tyre as even the sidewall is remoulded, but we believe that offering a full range of options means that we guarantee our customers the best solution for their individual business needs.”

Following Continental’s retreading, either mould or pre-cure, regrooving can also be carried out for a second time to further extend the life of the retread. The tyre maker says that applying the full ContiLifeCycle concept can result in costs savings of up to 25 per cent as opposed to using solely new tyres.