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JT Motor owner is UK’s Top Technician

Chelmsford mechanic John Tinham has been named the winner of Top Technician 2011, winning the prize a second time after his victory in 2005. Tinham won the prize after completing a series of online, practical and written tests set by chief judge Ian Gillgrass, accreditation manager at the Institute of the Motor Industry and his team of expert judges including 2008 Top Technician winner Mark Banks and Delphi trainers Rob Lewis and Tim Roberts. The annual competition aims to recognise and reward the best automotive technicians in the UK.

26th April 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

South Korea’s growing replacement tyre market valued at US$800 million

International News, News

With South Korean replacement car tyre sales of over 8.6 million units worth US$800.9 billion last year, the replacement tyre business joins the rest of the automotive industry in being a major part of the entire local economy. According to GfK’s automotive retail audit sales in second half of the year climbed 15 per cent over first half and nearly 30 per cent compared to the same period in 2009.

20th April 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Team programmer to unicycle for Cancer Research

Rob Northcott, head programmer at Team Systems, will be competing in the Dartmoor Cycle 2011 event on 22 May in support of Cancer Research UK. The event is organised by the Firefighters Fighting Cancer campaign and Northcott will be taking part in support of his colleague Matt Bateman, customer support manager at Team who is seriously ill with Hodgkins Lymphona in Derriford Hospital, Plymouth and is currently receiving chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.

20th April 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Michelin top in J.D. Power US satisfaction survey

The latest J.D. Power and Associates survey in the United States has revealed a growing level of tyre satisfaction amongst owners of domestic and European vehicles. According to the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 U.S. Original Equipment Tire Customer Satisfaction Study, released on April 11, levels of tyre satisfaction amongst owners of US-produced vehicles increased to 682 on a 1,000-point scale, up from 659 in 2009. Similarly, tyre satisfaction among owners of European vehicles has increased to 698 in 2011 from 689 in 2009. Tyre satisfaction for owners of Asian vehicles, however, has remained flat, declining just one point between 2009 and 2011 to its current level of 637. Tyre satisfaction amongst owners of Asian nameplate vehicles, J.D. Power notes, is well below average in all segments except for the luxury segment.

13th April 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Goodyear re-elects 12 directors to board at 2011 annual meeting

Shareholders of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company have re-elected 12 members of the company’s board of directors including chairman, president and CEO Richard J Kramer (full list below). The company also officially appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company’s independent registered public accounting firm for 2011, having had the action ratified by shareholders.

12th April 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Legal details of Kwik-Fit deal emerge

Legal firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) advised the management of Kwik-Fit on the well-known tyre retailer’s sale to Japanese conglomerate, Itochu Corporation, it emerged today. Nice to know, you might think, but what does this tell about the deal itself? According to the company, BLP fielded a cross-practice team to provide corporate finance, real estate, private equity, employee share schemes and tax advice – and this implies that that all these aspects have been involved in negotiations and ultimately the deal itself.

8th April 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Alcoa celebrates 125 years of modern aluminium

This year saw a milestone in American history that is “known to few but benefits everyone”, according to American forged aluminium wheel producer Alcoa. “On February 23, 1886, Charles Martin Hall passed an electric current through a molten cryolite-alumina solution to form the first small, shining globules of aluminium, known today as ‘our crown jewels.’

7th April 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti completes final stage of VDO loan refinancing

The Continental Corporation reports it has successfully completed final stage of its “comprehensive refinancing programme.” On March 29, the automotive supplier agreed to new terms and conditions for its VDO loan for an original financing volume of 6.5 billion euros, maturing next year. The new package features a credit volume totalling six billion euros: One loan tranche of 625 million euros will mature in August 2012, a further tranche of 2.875 billion euros plus a revolving credit facility amounting to 2.5 billion euros have a term of three years. Financing will be provided by more than 35 banks; Continental states it was “significantly oversubscribed.”

30th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

SPX Completes Teradyne Purchase

On 22 May SPX Corporation announced that it had completed the acquisition of Stockport-based Teradyne Diagnostics Solutions. Teradyne Diagnostics is a global supplier of diagnostic solutions for transportation OEMs and automotive dealerships, tier-one suppliers and independent service providers. Terms of the purchase have not been released, but the transaction includes operations near Manchester, Brussels, Munich, Detroit and Tokyo. Teradyne employs about 200 employees and generated revenue equivalent to $40 million in 2010.

25th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Yokohama team acknowledged for cashew nut shell innovation

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a group of four men working for Yokohama Rubber developed a bead filler compound for high performance tyres based on polymerised cardanol, a chemical derived from liquid extracted out of cashew nut shells. Cashew based products were already in use to improve bleeding on the surface of green rubber, but the cardanol based product developed by Shineru Shinoda, Masayoshi Daio, Hideki Ishida and Tetsuji Kawazura providing an extremely high hardness after vulcanisation while at the same time keeping the viscosity of the compound low during processing. Some two decades later, on February 4, 2011, the Yokohama Rubber team’s efforts were acknowledged with their receipt of the “Mortimer T. Harvey Award 2010” from Cardolite Corporation, a leading manufacturer of cashew nutshell liquid products.

25th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Schrader expects customer base to double by 2015

Following the announcement that TPMS firm Schrader Electronics is to create over 100 jobs following a £29 million investment at the company’s Northern Ireland operations off the back of European funding and securing an OE supply deal for Ford Europe, the firm expects its customer base to double.

Invest Northern Ireland offered Schrader over £5 million of the investment part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), towards the investment projects. Of this, £1.9 million will support the expansion of the firm's production facilities, promote growth in the European and Asian markets and create a total of 130 new jobs, all of which will help the company target European and Asian markets. Schrader, which is part of the automotive and industrial division of Tomkins, already employs between 800 and 900 people in Antrim and Carrickfergus.

18th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyre in Ferrari 4WD OE deal

Ferrari has chosen the Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyre to be fitted as original equipment on the four-wheel drive Ferrari FF. Michelin told Tyres & Accessories at the launch of the tyre back in November 2010 that the company had worked with Ferrari – in addition to BMW and most prominently Porsche – in the development of the tyre, furthering the link between the French tyre-maker and Italian car manufacturer forged in past OE deals. The tyre has been on the market since the beginning of 2011, and is the fastest ever commercial tyre, according to testing at TÜV-SÜD Automotive.

16th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Continental announces aid for Japan

German tyre and automotive component manufacturer Continental AG has donated 250,000 euros in emergency aid for those living in the regions of Japan destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami. Referring to recent developments, company CEO Dr. Elmar Degenhart said “our thoughts are currently with the people of Japan who are living through one of the country’s worst crises. Management and employees alike have been devastated by the disaster and its consequences.

15th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

BEN appoints new head of marketing

Automotive industry charity BEN has appointed Ray Diggins as its new head of marketing. Diggins has spent 30 years in the industry, with the last 20 as group marketing manager for two of the UK's largest motor groups. BEN says this appointment is “central to BEN's awareness-raising strategy” – Diggins’ primary focus will be on increasing the charity's visibility throughout the automotive and related industries and heightening understanding of the scope and scale of its work. He joined the team on 8 March and will be based at the charity's headquarters in Sunninghill, Ascot.

14th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors

Raw material costs declining: DB report

A March 11 report from DB Equity Research Automotive observes that the cost of “certain key raw materials” used by tyre manufacturers have begun to decline. The Deutsche Bank equity research team states: “Most notably, we estimate that natural rubber prices have declined by nine per cent since last Friday…and rubber has declined by approx. 15 per cent (from the $2.45-$2.50/lb level) since US tyre companies reported their Q4 results. If this decline in natural rubber costs is sustained, total raw material costs could decline by 4.0 per cent compared with Deutsche Bank estimates.”

11th March 2011/by Tyrepress Editors