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Aftermarket TPMS from Tyresure

Tyresure remind us that a car tyre’s contact with the road comes courtesy of a patch of rubber usually no bigger than a child’s footprint. Yet while we rely on them to transport our most precious of cargos, most of us rarely give them the attention they deserve. But an aftermarket solution is at hand; the company’s products allow crucial tyre pressure and temperature data to be displayed in an instant, enabling drivers to check its status without even leaving the driving seat.

Tyresure’s TPMS, says the company, utilises military-spec technology on each road wheel to display an accurate tyre pressure and temperature reading for each tyre, direct to the driver in real time. This can be accessed permanently, or set as a ‘pre-flight check’, which then updates the driver if preset safety parameters are breached. This is displayed through a compact display screen that shows safe pressures in green, changing to red if the pressure or temperature moves to a dangerous level. The system works on any type of vehicle, from family saloons to the full-size SUVs, and once the sensors have been fitted to the wheels the system is a true ‘Plug & Play’ fitment.

2nd May 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Proud Farmers Wanted

Goodyear is on the look-out for the UK’s top performing agricultural innovator. And what’s more the company is offering £3500 worth of Goodyear Farm tyres and the title of Goodyear Proud to be a Farmer Award 2008 to the most innovative farmer the company comes across. Anyone interested in entering the competition is encouraged to enter the competition via the Goodyear website www.mygoodyear.co.uk.

This year Goodyear celebrates 70 years of specialised farm tyre supply within the UK. To celebrate these innovations over the last 70 years Goodyear has teamed together with Harper Adams University College based near Shropshire, to create the Proud to be a Farmer Award. This award is searching for the UK’s most innovative, pioneering and ground breaking farmer. “Harper Adams is one of the UK’s top agricultural universities and offers a wealth of knowledge on farming practice and innovation. They will be using their expertise to help us select a winner of the Proud to be a Farmer award 2008” said Andy Morris, Director of Goodyear Farm Tyres.

30th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti ‘On Course’ for 2008 Targets

The first three months of the year have provided Continental AG with results that indicate the company is on course to achieve its 2008 sales and operating targets – this is the word from the company on April 29, following the public release of its quarter figures. “Despite the in part unsatisfactory trends on the tyre markets, we have clearly exceeded our expectations for the corporation on the whole. A help here was the satisfactory development of car production on the whole, particularly in Europe and Asia,” said Continental Executive Board chairman Manfred Wennemer. “Backed by the solid results for the first three months, we are confident that we will achieve our targets for the year. We will counter further rises in raw material prices with price increases, improvement in our product mix and further enhanced efficiency.”

29th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Record Breaking Performance

Ruling the high performance roost at Michelin is the Pilot Sport PS2 and the Pilot Sport Cup +. The first of these is a tyre that, in April 2008, earned the distinction of being the tyre fitted to the world’s fastest production car – a Shelby SuperCars’ Ultimate Aero, fitted with the Michelin tyres, set a new record of 256.18 mph (412.28 km/h) during tests in the US. This accomplishment, the first occasion in which a US vehicle manufacturer has held the speed record since 1967, took place with little to no wear present on the Michelin tyre.

So this second generation Michelin tyre is obviously not one intended for plodding trips to the supermarket, then. Designed in close collaboration with prestige vehicle manufacturers in the sport and supersport segments, the Pilot Sport PS2 has been homologated for various models from, amongst others, Audi, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes. The Pilot Sport PS2 features a rigid asymmetric tread pattern – Michelin points out the similarities this format, with its four grooves around the tyre, shares with Formula 1 tyres. The pattern is one that ensures superior steering response, the manufacturer adds, and grip on wet and dry surfaces is improved by the presence of a dual compound plus the use of a Variable Contact Patch (VCP) System that maintains the optimum size and shape of the tyre’s contact patch whether driving in a straight line or under hard cornering.

28th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Bandvulc Develops New Plus Range Using Footprint Analysis

Leading independent retreader, Bandvulc, has released details of how it used footprint analysis in the development of its Plus range. The footprint analysis machine has been built in-house and is specifically designed to improve tyre mileage and handling characteristics. “The purpose of the machine is to simulate a truck tyre, under load,” says Patrick O’Connell, director of The Bandvulc Group. “When pressure is applied to the tyre, equivalent to the right tonnage, a digitised tyre footprint is created on pressure sensitive paper. Results from the subsequent analysis are used to create an improved tyre profile that optimises performance,” he adds.

This new range of tyres, known as the Plus range, further enhances already established brand names with proven performance. The aim is to increase tyre mileage by 10 per cent and will be slowly rolled out across Bandvulc’s entire product range.

28th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Hankook Launches “Kontrol Technology”

Hankook Tire has chosen the Auto Beijing 2008 show for the global launch of ‘Kontrol Technology’ – the company’s research and development philosophy. It is the South Korean manufacturer’s aim that, through Kontrol Technology, understanding the technology that goes into Hankook’s tyres will become easier for customers and dealer to understand. Kontrol Technology also represents a set of proprietary innovations developed by Hankook to ensure – in the company’s own words – controlled driving experiences. The result of Kontrol Technology, says Hankook, will be products that provide a range of driving benefits across four areas customers identify as vital when choosing quality tyres: performance; safety; comfort; and a tyre’s impact on the environment.

At Hankook’s Kontrol Technology information booth at Auto Beijing the tyremaker also premiered a new environmental tyre – the enfren – a product that has completed the Kontrol Technology development cycle and is due for its commercial debut in Korea during early summer. The tyre combines a number of technologies including a silica compound and an efficient structural design, and production facility technologies that enhance the tyre’s rolling resistance have been utilised in its production. According to test results from the Korea Automotive Technology Institute, the enfren improves fuel economy by 3 per cent and reduces CO2 emissions by 4 kg/km. The manufacturer says the tyre has the potential to save consumers on average of approximately 34.5 litres of petrol per year in comparison to a current generation Hankook tyre.

25th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Yokohama, AAA, RMA Team up in US to Promote Safety

In the US the Automobile Club of Southern California, Rubber Manufacturers Association, California Highway Patrol and Yokohama Tire Co. are joining forces during National Tire Safety Week to encourage drivers to check their vehicle’s tyre pressure in order to save fuel and increase safety.

The groups are distributing 13,500 “tyre tread depth cards” to consumers this week through the Auto Club’s local offices and Roadside Assistance providers. The Auto Club and RMA are also distributing “Tire Smart” brochures in AAA offices. AAA Approved Auto Repair facilities also will check tyres and pressure free of charge for members and the public during the week.

24th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Shrinking a Giant

Michelin has in the past year launched a range of initiatives that contribute to the company’s aim of substantially reducing the carbon footprint of its tyres from the first stage of production, to their use on the road, right through to the tyre’s eventual disposal at the end of their lives. These end-to-end efficiencies will require continuous investment, but are expected to create great environmental benefits.

One initiative is the MEF (Michelin sites Environmental Footprint) programme, which includes a number of ambitious objectives for Michelin’s factories to reach by a target deadline of 2011. These include a reduction of energy consumption by 7 per cent, water usage by 10 per cent, CO2 by 10 per cent, other harmful emissions by 25 per cent and materials going to landfill by 60 per cent.

The first step towards these goals was taken at Michelin’s headquarters in Stoke-on-Trent, where a combined programme of heat and power reduction was implemented. The tyre major followed this up with the installation of two wind turbines at its Dundee manufacturing plant, greatly reducing the site’s dependency on fossil fuels. In the time they have been running, the turbines have generated enough carbon free electricity to power the nearby city for a month. The use of green power generation methods is currently under consideration for other Michelin sites in the UK and abroad.

24th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Pirelli Funded University Chair Established for Tyre Research

As part of plans first announced last year, the Pirelli Group has signed an agreement with Milan’s Politecnico di Milano University to jointly create a chair in “Chemical Foundations of Technology of Rubber and Composites” at the University. The new professorship is intended for the study of innovative materials and the application of nanotechnologies in the development of the next generation of tyres. As part of the agreement, Pirelli will also finance five grants for research Ph.Ds over a ten-year period at the “G. Natta” Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano.

23rd April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

DC PowerSystems Develops Compressor With 65% Fuel Savings

With diesel costing more than a pound a litre, DC PowerSystems claims to have designed mobile tyre van compressor that offers a potential fuel of £10,000 over the course of the van’s life. The figure is based on the typical service life of a mobile truck tyre fitting van. Want to know how this works? The trick is that the DC PowerSystems compressor only needs the host vehicle engine to run at 800 rpm rather than the 1700 rpm typical PTO driven systems require. As a consequence, the reduction in fuel usage equates directly to a reduction in carbon emissions.

Working with the Power Train and Vehicle Research Centre at Bath University, DC PowerSystems aimed to establish the level of fuel savings that could be achieved. A simple test enabled the fuel consumption of the host vehicle to be determined while the compressor system was running on load, by reading the data directly from the vehicle’s ECU.

22nd April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

GfK Releases Report on UK Tyre Market

A much-awaited insight into our local tyre market has become available following the release of the first in a series of regular reports produced by market research company GfK. The GfK report into retail sales of new tyres divides the market into three distinct channels; national multiples (retailers with over 100 branches), regional multiples (10-99 branches) and independents (1-9 branches). Data from thousands of depots has been collected and analysed over a six-month period, and GfK has estimated the total UK new tyre replacement market (for car, 4×4 and light commercial vehicles) to be 28.4 million units.

22nd April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

TyreSafe Urges Greater Tyre Awareness in Light of New Act

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, discussed in previous editions of Tyres & Accessories, came into force at the beginning of April, and TyreSafe comments that defective or badly worn tyres could now become the Achilles’ heel of companies, and could result in prosecution under the Act. The legislation stipulates that employers have a Duty of Care to ensure the safety of employees driving for work, which means that businesses will be responsible for the maintenance of not only their own fleet, but also those of the ‘grey fleet,’ the thousands of private vehicles being used every day by employees to travel whilst on company business. It will be necessary for companies to show an audit trail indicating that regular vehicle condition checks have been carried out and documented.

11th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Goodyear’s Laura Thompson Elected Company Officer

Goodyear’s Board of Directors has voted to appoint vice president of business development, Laura Thompson, as an officer of the corporation. Ms Thompson has served in her current role since June 2005 and is responsible for acquisition, divestiture and partnership activities in supporting Goodyear’s long-term strategies.

The 43-year old Akron region native began her career with Goodyear in 1983, working part-time while finishing her undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Akron (she also holds an MBA in finance from the same establishment). Ms Thompson then served in various financial and accounting staff positions, both in business units and corporate staff, until being named manager of finance for Research and Development in 1997. In 2000, she was named director of Investor Relations and served in that capacity for two years. She became finance director for consumer tyres in the company’s North American Tire business in 2002, and was named director, business development for the unit a year later.

9th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Uzmai to Launch High Speed Crane Tyre Range

Uzmai, the manufacturer of Maitech all-steel radial OTR tyres, is to launch a new range of high speed crane tyres during the Essen show. Company representatives told Tyres & Accessories that the first product to be released from this new line will be a 445/95-25 (1600-25) product. Uzmai already offers its Maitech UM3 tyres in a range of 6 sizes covering 15.5R25, 17.5R25, 20.5R25, 23.5R25, 26.5R25 and 29.5 with several new products just launched for 2008 including L5 in 23.5R25, 26.5R25 and 29.5R25.

7th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Company Applies for Tyres to Diesel Patent

Paul Archer, a former firefighter from Durham, has applied to patent an invention that turns old car tyres into good quality diesel oil. Thanks to a suggestion from his patent attorney, his business now expects to earn millions from selling licences worldwide. From the germ of an idea in the early 1990s, Paul Archer (who now lives in the East Midlands) and his business partners have formed a company – UTD Research Ltd – and built a working prototype that is now set to process up to two million old tyres a year at their first UK plant near Wrexham, North Wales.

The UTD invention means that the environment can be spared the harmful effects of millions of tons of old tyres being tipped into landfill sites, and increasingly scarce fossil fuels can be eked out with the oil recovered from used tyres. In a recent televised test, reclaimed oil from UTD’s process was mixed with fuel-station diesel to power a standard family saloon car. With no modifications at all, the car performed normally.

7th April 2008/by Tyrepress Editors