Are Eurorepar Reliance tyres made by Hankook?

Following the announcement that PSA UK has added Reliance tyres to its British Eurorepar offer. The next question is, who makes the Reliance tyre brand? The good news is that colleagues at our German sister publication (Neue Reifenzeitung, which you can read online at reifenpresse.de) looked into this at the end of 2019 and found strong evidence that the tyres are made by Hankook.

The case begins with the circumstantial evidence that Eurorepar’s Reliance Winter tyres are visually very similar to Hankook’s Winter I * Cept Evo (W310) and Winter I * Cept RS” (W442). Indeed, the tyres’ tread patterns are so similar that they appear to literally be reflections of one another. This similarity alone might be enough to suggest that Hankook is the manufacturer of the Eurorepar Reliance Winter tyre range, however there is more.

For example, Russian website Shina Guide – which means something like tyre guide – have already speculated about the similarities between the Eurorepar Reliance Summer tyre’s tread and that of Hankook’s Optimo (H431). In addition, Groupe PSA has published a product and tyre graphic for this product in which you can clearly read “Made in China” as well as, with a little good will, a DOT number starting with 1G. 1G refers to Hankook Tire (Jiaxing) Co. Ltd., which is actually located in Jiaxing, Zhejian Province, China.

As far as Eurorepar’s “Reliance Winter” profile is concerned, one can find a detailed illustration of one of the two winter variants in the depths of the Internet – more precisely on the website called Après Vente Auto . Deciphering the DOT number starting with “T7″ is no problem here. And T7 refers to Hankook Tire Mfg. Co. Ltd. in Daejeon, which goes well with the tyre’s “Made in Korea” side wall marking.

When our Reifenpresse.de colleagues published the original findings in October 2019, a Hankook company spokesman said the tyre manufacturer doesn’t publish information about its customer relationships. Likewise, the PSA Group said that generally no statements are made about their agreements with manufacturers. Tyres & Accessories contacted the UK branches of both Eurorepar and Hankook who have so far declined to comment.