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Much has been said about the British making the most of their newly enfeebled pound by taking their holidays at home, and this means….gulp….that many of the approximately two million caravan owners nationwide may consider hitting the road this Easter. Many of these owners will set off without having carried out basic safety checks to ensure a trouble free break, says Protyre, the UK’s leading independent tyre dealer network.
Hofmann, a brand within Snap-on Equipment, has introduced the new monty universal 2 ‘all-round’ roller type tyre changer. The new product enables lever-less tyre changing for all wheel variants, including run-flat and ultra high profile rims of up to 30” diameter and 17” wide.
The company states that the aim of the monty universal 2 is to build on the popularity of the monty 3300 racing, a tough act to follow considering the 3300 is, according to Snap-On, Europe’s best-selling professional tyre changer. Chris Behan, general manager at Snap-on Equipment, comments: “With more and more cars on the road using run-flat and ultra high profile, high performance tyres, workshops need to keep ahead of the game with the right equipment to safely handle these rims without risking costly damage. The new monty universal 2 sets a new standard in addressing these challenges with built-in features that helps to ensure operator health and safety and easy tyre changing for all wheel types.”
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A truck driver died when a tyre on his vehicle that he was checking by the side of the A14 in Suffolk exploded. Paramedics arrived on the scene but were unable to save the driver, who has yet to be named. The busy road, which is the main route from the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich to the Midlands, was closed to allow an air ambulance to land.
A spokesman for the AA said: “The main reason for a tyre exploding is either massive over inflation, and I mean when it is extremely over inflated, not just a bit. Or an under inflation, because then the tyres can get too hot. But it is very rare.
Workers at Michelin North America’s Ardmore, Oklahoma passenger and light truck tyre facility will return to a full work schedule in mid-April, says company spokeswoman Lynn Mann. The factory has been operating at reduced capacity since last November, when approximately 240 employees were placed on eight-week furloughs. In February, Michelin announced plans to reduce production at the plant.
The reduced work period ends on April 13, said Mann. Following this date, employees will return to normal work schedules.
Hundreds of France based Continental employees took to the streets of Paris on March 25 to protest the planned closure of the company’s Clairoix factory. The demonstrators burnt tyres and chanted slogans as they made their way to the Elysée Palace, official residence of the French president. Employee representatives from the facility also met with president Nicolas Sarkozy’s counsellor for social affairs, Raymond Soubie.
The protest coincided with talks between Continental CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann and board member Nikolai Setzer and French economy minister Christine Lagarde. Conti reports that the two men met Lagarde to assure her the decision to close the site was related to dropping tyre sales, and that the company hoped the public authorities could help in creating new jobs in the Compiegne region where the factory is located.
In an interview with the German newspaper, Spiegel, Maria-Elisabeth and Georg Schaeffler – the owners of 20 and 80 per cent respectively of the automotive supplier – have answered a variety of questions relating to the current status of the business, considering the financial difficulties it is facing due to the timing of its takeover of Continental and the ongoing financial crisis. They insist that accusations of irresponsibility on the Group’s part in the takeover ignore the conditions in summer 2008 and use hindsight, which is in Georg’s words “the key to the debate,” to criticise their actions after the fact. In addition, the owners have referred to the banks’ and the government’s “responsibility” in the crisis and the differentiation between “the assistance benefiting a company that is fundamentally healthy and one that was already ailing before the crisis.”
Goodyear Dunlop has reported that its portfolio has performed well in the ADAC 2009 summer tyre test, following the publishing of the results by the German Automobile Association. The report praises the Goodyear, Dunlop and Fulda brands from the Goodyear Dunlop portfolio. Representing Europe’s biggest market, Germany’s ADAC is particularly influential in helping customers decide which brand to purchase.
Mark Davison, sales and marketing director at Goodyear Dunlop, said, “The huge efforts made in the field of development have once again been richly rewarded with these results. We will be circulating these results to our customers in the months to come, by way of our planned communication strategies.” The company was keen to highlight in particular the performance of the new Goodyear OptiGrip tyre, the Dunlop SP Sport Fast Response and the Fulda Carat Progresso.
Toyo Tire USA has launched an all-new Web site – www.toyotires.com. Calling the move the “biggest facelift to date for the company’s online presence,” the revamped website is more user friendly and more complete than the previous version, Toyo stated.
The site features new graphics, more detailed information on Toyo tire products, a tyre finder feature to allow consumers to select the right tyre for their needs (either OE sizing or plus sizing), inflation pressure data for thousands of vehicles, and a comprehensive dealer locator service.
To encourage sharing of information on the website, a brand new “share this” feature is located on every page. Using it, a person can easily post a link back to a page on sites such as Facebook, Digg, Redditt, MySpace and Twitter. They can also share the link in an email, Toyo said. (Tire Review/Akron)
One week before the final pre-season MotoGP test in Jerez, LCR Honda rider Randy de Puniet and Pramac Racing’s Niccolo Canepa flew to the southern Spanish circuit of Almeria to support the media launch of Bridgestone’s Battlax BT-003. The tyre is designed to provide outstanding street and track day performance for all sports motorcycles from 250cc upwards, giving riders of all abilities the chance to experience the grip performance of Bridgestone’s MotoGP multi-layer compound technology. A range of 2009-specification street bikes from MotoGP manufacturers Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha were fitted with the BT-003RS tyres and used during the five days, alongside machines from BMW, Triumph and KTM.
Bridgestone Americas opened the doors to its new 1 million square foot distribution center in Jacksonville, Florida.
Calling it “state-of-the-art tyre,” the company said the new facility has a capacity of more than one million tyres and will supply tyres and automotive parts to customers in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. It will also supply the entire U.S. with tyres produced in Latin America, and the eastern half of the U.S. with tyres from Japan and other Asian countries.
Bridgestone Americas operates seven distribution centres across North America. (Tire Review/Akron)
Sri Lanka based Roshan Tyre Retreaders has become the latest company to join the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau (TRIB), bringing the organisation’s membership to nearly 500 members in 50 countries. “TRIB continues to grow internationally as more and more companies in the new tyre and retread industries throughout the world realise that TRIB is the only international retread industry association representing new tyre manufacturers, retreaders and tyre repair companies,” said TRIB managing director Harvey Brodsky.
This year automotive component supplier Dana Corporation celebrates 25 years of supplying its Central Tire Inflation Systems (CTIS) to military and commercial vehicle customers. Initially developed for use by the US armed forces in 1984, Dana reports that it now supplies its CITS to OEMs in the North America and global markets.
“Dana CTIS is selected by more military vehicle OEMs than all of the competitive systems combined,” said James Beverly, Dana’s chief engineer of advanced chassis control systems. “The product is used extensively by the US Army and Marine Corps, as well as NATO forces, and in a variety of commercial vehicle applications such as oil field exploration and construction.”
The FIM World Endurance Championship will this year, for the first time, be contested by a bike wearing Michelin colours. The French manufacturer states that the entry of the motorcycle, under the ‘Michelin Power Research Team’ name, breaks new ground in the company’s competition history.
The team’s blue Honda CBR 1000 RR will carry the number 63 – the number given to France’s Puy de Dôme region or ‘department’ (the home to Michelin’s headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand) – and will be shared by test drivers William Costes, Hugo Marchand and Josep Monge. The Michelin Power Research Team bike will be prepared and run by Honda dealer Jean-François Daffix and his team, which is based in Aubière near Clermont-Ferrand.
Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) has marked the official opening of its new tyre distribution centre in Jacksonville, Florida. The centre’s opening, says BATO, marks the latest step in its North America distribution centre modernisation programme.
With a capacity of more than a million tyres, ranging from small passenger and industrial tyres to those for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, the Jacksonville centre will supply tyres and automotive parts to Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. In addition, the distribution centre will supply the entire United States with tyres produced in Latin America, and the eastern half of the United States with tyres from Japan and the wider Asia region.
Cooper Tire has appointed Cathy Hissong its new director of corporate communications. In this position, Hissong will be responsible for employee communications, including oversight of employee publications and intranet communications, direction of various business projects and management of Cooper’s Visual Communications Center. Having joined Cooper in 1986 as a budget analyst, Hissong’s time with the Ohio, US based manufacturer has seen her employed in the roles of capital equipment buyer, regional credit manager and audit manager before training as a Six Sigma black belt, her most recent position.
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