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Cooper Appoints New Mickey Thompson Wheel Product Manager

(Akron/Tire Review) Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.’s Mickey Thompson brand division has hired Carl Robinson to the new position of wheel product manager. Robinson had been Weld Wheel Industries Inc.’s director of motorsports and president of Race Wheel Enterprises Inc. in Dania, Fla. Robinson has also helped develop various testing devices for wheel and tire assemblies and is a past member of the S.F.I. Wheel Certification Committee, Cooper said.

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Tyre Shortage Set to Continue

We hear so much about overcapacity in the tyre industry, with too many tyres chasing too few wheels, but this is not the case in all sectors and certainly not in the OTR/Earthmover tyre market, where words and phrases such as “crisis” and “global shortage” are freely bandied about.

Reports suggest that there is little prospect of improvement in the short to medium-term, with the entire global OTR tyre production for at least the next couple of years having already been sold. One prediction, from the UK’s OTR Tyres, forecasts that demand will exceed supply through to 2010.

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Sherbrook To Market Kosei Alloy Wheels

Japanese premium wheel brand, Kosei is to be exclusively marketed in the UK by Sherbrook International. The Kosei name will join the existing brands in Sherbrook’s portfolio, which includes Rondell, Outlaw and DJ. The Kosei brand will be available in sizes of up to 22 inches.

“Kosei is an established worldwide brand with a unique position in the top segment of the market,” said Sherbrook International CEO Peter Whitehouse. “The wheels are incredibly stylish, fashionable and of the moment. The appeal of Kosei is individual and exclusive and we are delighted to add it to our product portfolio.”

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Yokohama HPT Instrumental In Donut World Records

Yokohama HPT was instrumental in stunt driver Terry Grant’s success in claiming two new World Records at last month’s Autosport International show. Grant chose Yokohama tyres and TSW alloy wheels for the cars he used to shatter the existing records for performing donuts.

As Grant was the previous record holder, he was aiming to smash own achievement for the number of cars performing donuts simultaneously by a single driver. The technique involved setting one car donutting, locking the throttle and steering, leaving the spinning car, getting into another car and repeating the process. Terry’s previous record was for three cars but he went one better to set the record with four cars concurrently donutting, to rapturous applause from the audience in the show’s Live Action Arena.

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DJ Wheels Launches New Designs for 2006

Pitching their marketing directly at young drivers looking to upgrade their first hot-hatch, DJ Wheels has released two additions to its 2006 range. With vivid computer game style images on both the literature and point of sale material, Sherbrook is aiming to move ‘First Wheels’ marketing forward in a campaign that breaks new ground in the accessory sector. In total nine designs are available in the 2006 DJ Wheels line-up.

The new DJ388 is said to deliver ‘split-rim’ styling at an affordable price. The five-spoke design comes in either 4 or 5-stud fixing. Size availability is: 7×15 and 7×16 in Sport Silver finish, with 7×17 and 7.5×18 in Hyper Silver.

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Bridgestone Unveils New In-Wheel Motor System

Bridgestone Corporation has unveiled a more compact, lighter version of its revolutionary in-wheel motor system for electric vehicles (Version III). Bridgestone first released details of the in-wheel motor system in September 2003. Then, a more compact and lighter version (Version II) was designed in September 2004. Based on this technology, Bridgestone developed the latest version especially for small tyre sizes.

Installing the drive motors inside the wheels means each wheel can be controlled individually, which supports excellent handling. It also eliminates the need for the differential gear and drive shaft and therefore allows for unprecedented freedom when designing vehicles. Designers can allocate more space to the driver and passengers without increasing the overall size and weight of the vehicle.

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Get Fierce With Goodyear

In the USA, Goodyear has introduced “Fierce” – a new product line targeted at auto enthusiasts, tuners and sport-performance enthusiasts. The Fierce brand is available in three different tyre types – high-performance, ultra-high performance and sport truck. These three fast-growing tyre segments represent areas of extreme focus for enthusiasts who modify their vehicles. Research shows that tyres rank second in vehicle modifications in the sport compact segment, just behind exhaust components.

“For these enthusiasts, whether they own a tuner-car, sport truck or sleek sports sedan, a change in their tyre-and-wheel package is among the easiest of modifications to make, yet it probably carries the best bang-for-the-buck in terms of both appearance and vehicle performance,” said Chris Magana, marketing manager for Fierce.

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Chinese Boom Depletes Global OTR Markets

Recently the global mining industry has had to face a new obstacle. And it has nothing to do with a lack of demand for the raw materials that this business harvests from the earth. Far from it. In the wake of economic expansion in Asia and America, global demand for raw materials has increased rapidly. Order books are full. Despite this, without an integral component, some mining companies have been brought to a standstill. Like cars, earthmovers and other off-the-road (OTR) vehicles cannot go anywhere without tyres.

The chronic shortage of the right kind of rubber for these, often enormous, vehicles means wheel loaders, earth movers and other quarry, mine and dump orientated machines are increasingly rolled out to customers shod only with wooden bandages designed to protect the rims. Frustrated at the pace of delivery, some mine and quarry operators have even sourced new tyres from the tyre trade themselves, new tyres that are intended to fit newly bought vehicles. Although now, even the tyre trade is finding it difficult to offer anything in this respect.

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Titan Reaches Agreement With Union

Titan International, Inc. has reached an agreement with the United Steelworkers in a civil RICO case that began in September 2000. The case was dismissed on Wednesday, 1 February in Springfield, Illinois.

“This disagreement started with the strike on May 1, 1998, and it has been a real fight,” said Maurice M Taylor, Titan chairman and CEO. “There’s no question that both parties were putting a lot of passion and money into this lawsuit. Titan believed it would have been successful, just as we were successful in the shareholder derivative suit brought against Titan by law firm Milberg Weiss, Bershad, Hynes, and LeRach LLP, but during negotiations with Goodyear on their North American farm tyre business, which took over 22 months, it became clear that Titan and the USW have a common goal—American jobs that pay fair wages and benefits. Titan agrees with that, but Titan believes it runs the factories, and if you pay for eight hours of work, you should get eight hours of work,” said Taylor.

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The Next Millennium

Viking International is set to launch a new “competitively priced” ultra high performance tyre range – the Millennium. According to the company, the new exclusive tyre comes as the result of massive investment and is designed to deliver “the ultimate in reliability and predictability at the extremes of performance handling.”

Viking reports that it has completely re-engineered its Millennium UHP range and that the line is now available in 36 sizes, fitting 15 to 18 inch diameter wheels. An 18 inch option is set to follow later in 2006. The new European-produced Millennium, uses a unique silica compound and is W – Y rated for speeds of up to 186 mph.

Millennium’s new UHP directional tread pattern represents the very cutting edge in design technology, according to the company. It is currently available in 35, 40 and 45 series to fit wheels from 17 – 18 inches. The directional pattern is available in both W and Y speed ratings.

Unusually for a UHP tyre the Millennium claims to be a class leader when it comes to wear rates. Viking representatives report that this is down to low rolling resistance and point out that an integrated rim protector helps safeguard alloy wheels.

Furthermore, the Millennium’s asymmetrical tread pattern is said to deliver superb all weather handling. Featuring new “tri zone” technology, the Millennium also claims “superior” ride comfort and reduced noise with excellent high-speed water dispersal; superb corning stability and steering response. Available from 40 series to 65 series to fit wheels from 15 – 17 inches, this variation is available in V and W speed ratings.

Mike Curry, managing director at Viking International, said: “The new Millennium range offers an exceptional quality alternative to the more expensive, premium-branded high performance products, with the added advantage of providing significantly better profit potential for the retailer. We will be supporting the launch with a high profile trade marketing campaign running throughout 2006 and we have developed a full range of support including point of sale; signage; merchandise; clothing and consumer / trade incentives.”
He added: “The Millennium range is only available through Viking International and with the rapid growth in the performance market, we are expecting a very high level of demand for this exciting new range.”

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Successful Debut For IQPC “Intelligent Tire Technology“Conference

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At the end of last year the International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC) organised its first conference dedicated to tyre related topics. As the name of the event suggests, it mainly dealt with intelligent tyre technologies – meaning run-flat tyres and tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS). Participants were invited to take part in a day-long workshop immediately before the two-day conference with the first day completely focusing on new developments. The second conference day featured information about a wide range of different topics like for example tyre/road noise, chassis control and the design of alloy wheels.

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Maxxis Moves up a Gear

For nearly three decades, the East Anglian company Bickers has been developing the Maxxis brand in a number of niche markets, including motorcycles and scooters, Moto-X, ATV and lawn care. Now, following the establishment of a joint venture between Maxxis and Bickers (Maxxis International UK plc), a concerted effort will be made to develop the brand – especially in the passenger car tyre and LCV markets.

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Busy at Beissbarth

These are busy times at Beissbarth UK. First of all there have been two new additions to the Microtec wheel balancing range. The versatile Microtec stationary micro processor controlled wheel balancers feature nine different programmes for passenger car and light trucks up to 65 kilos, with two programmes for motor bike wheels.

Key features of the MT 825 Wheel Balancer include foot pedal brake to fix the balancing shaft, three alloy programmes, three special programmes and two PAX. There are two LED for imbalance direction indicators and two LCD for digital imbalance and status information. The 825 comes complete with an aluminium weight caliper tool for manual fitting of adhesive weights on the inside of the rim.

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Stamford Announces Wheel Price Hike

(Akron/Tire Review) Thai tyre and wheel maker Stamford Tires & Wheels said it is raising prices on its Stamford Sport Wheels and private branded wheel products by 3 to 5 per cent, effective 1 February. Stamford said prices on 13- to 15-inch wheels will increase by 5 per cent, while prices on 16-inch and greater wheels will increase 3 per cent.

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Should You Repair Run-Flats?

Surveying the current state of the run-flat aftermarket reveals that there is a fair amount of discontent amongst dealers when it comes to so-called “fail-safe” tyre technology. As you would expect, retailers are interested in the financial benefits, but are not so keen on the short supply and customer satisfaction issues some have faced.

One of the lingering problems in this respect, is the question of whether or not to repair run-flats. For some dealers it all comes down to a question of customer service. One business told T&A recently: “A customer got a flat run-flat on his BMW. When we told him that he had to fork out £200 to replace a two-week old tyre, he was not impressed.”

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