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NORTH AMERICA/NEWS EXTRA
retreads per year. The
plant is outfitted with
new equipment and
includes the latest
technologies for
manufacturing
retreads exclusively
for the provinces of
Manitoba and
Saskatchewan and will service more than 200 customers.
“Growing our ContiLifeCycle distribution across Canada is our most important objective,” said Paul Williams, Continental’s executive vice president for commercial vehicle tyres in the Americas. “Partnering with service focused distributors like Quality Tire Service LTD in an effort to reduce overall driving costs to our
fleet customers will be what drives mutual success of both dealers and fleets.”
The company said the Saskatoon facility is the first of a series of such facilities that Continental plans for the region and is a key component of Continental Tire’s aggressive growth strategy for ContiLifeCycle in Canada.
Belle Tire Open House
“We’re putting our signature on the tyre when it goes out that door,” says Tom Bowman (left), vice president of Belle Tire’s commercial division. He is shown with Buck Cool, manager of the company’s retread plant near Cleveland.
Cleveland, Ohio’s Belle Tire ran an open day to push the retread message to existing and new clients. They gave visitors a no holds barred view of retreading so that they could see just how much went into producing a quality retread tyre.
“We’re proud of our process because we put out quality products,” says Tom Bowman, vice president of Belle Tire’s commercial division. “When we bring prospects and customers to our plant they understand why there’s such a value in retreading.” Belle Tire is a Bandag franchisee and for all Bandag franchisees shearography plays a key role in determining quality. Shearography is used to inspect tyre casings for damage prior to retreading. “It takes out the guessing game; you can see an anomaly in the tyre, a belt separation, anything wrong with that tyre,” says Bowman.
The shearography machine at the
Belle Tire plant is the latest model manufactured by Bandag. “We take pride in technology innovation, and we’re always upgrading our equipment so we have the latest in the plant,” says Bowman. The Cleveland retread plant has been operational for 16 years and the sales team has grown from two to five.
“Our business base an d the relationships we’ve built with our customers have grown so much,” says Bowman. “We thank them for their business every day, and we also want to show how much we appreciate them by letting them see our process.”
The plan is to be in Cleveland forever, says Bowman. He credits the plant’s success to its employees. “As you walk around in the tour you can see how in tune these guys are and how knowledgeable they are; these guys know more than anybody out there.”
The Belle Tire retread plant employs eight staff in production and a further 24 in the truck service centre. I addition to the Clevelend plant, Belle Tire has a second retread plant along with a tyre recycling facility in Detroit. Source:MTD
Continental
Opens Saskatchewan Retread Facility
Chinese tyres are the number one challenge to the retreading industry in every country in the world, and that includes China itself, where there are complaints about poor quality Chinese tyres damaging the market.
The fact is that China overproduces, and it has a huge capacity to produce, and the result is that low cost tyres will enter every tyre market in the world.
For many years the defence cry from new tyre manufacturers and resellers, and from retreaders, has been that the quality of Chinese tyres is not good enough.
However, things are changing and in Europe established wholesalers and retreaders are partnering with the better quality producers to capitalise on the quality. Obo Banden in the Netherlands even uses a Chinese supplier to manufacture casings that they complete by adding their own treads.
Now, in the USA the RTA has released correspondence from two tyre dealers defending the quality of Chinese tyres.
Al Eagleton of Dynamic Tire Corporation writes, “
We are a strategic-sourcing partner for several of the largest tyre dealers (Kal Tire, Fountain Tire, OK Tire, Coast Tire and Benson Tire) in Canada. All of our truck tyre brands are made by three manufactures in China – Aeolus, Sailun and Triangle. Certainly, we feel that all of these brands/manufacturers are consistent and reputable... Dynamic Tire in Canada, and Husky Tire in the U.S. are responsible for administering product warranty issues on behalf of the manufacturers. This includes the original tread life and through the second retread on most brands...Through our retread facilities we have gather data on all brands of
tyres and we have retreaded/rejected from Tier 1 down to Tier 4. We have non-retreadable tyre data on over 50,000 casings... We can speak from experience because our retreading customers are primarily the same dealers who purchase the Chinese manufactured tyres from us. We do not hesitate to retread any of the brands we sell... If the casing is deemed sound by proper inspection techniques and will last for the life of the retread, it is a retreadable casing...On behalf of retreaders throughout North America, let’s all do one another a favour: don’t simply dismiss Chinese casings as non- retreadable. Perform the proper inspection and retread what is retreadable. We are all sadly mistaken if we think that the Chinese- manufactured tyres are going away. Whilst TreadWare’s Clayton Van Kleeck has this to add...
As a provider of the TreadWare software for retread shop management, we see the data on many casings. It is changing. Even Tier 1 manufacturers have certain tyres that show up as having a history of problems. Liner failures, premature bead cracking, excessive sidewall bulging, etc., happen with every brand at some point...Tracking the data, observing it and using it are the ways to have factual information. Our observation of the data over the last several years shows us that the quality of tyres produced around the world continues to improve...The fact is that many truck tyres produced in China are improved and retreadable, multiple times... The fact is that many Chinese tyres are being retreaded successfully while providing value to the user and profit to the retreader.
Continental has opened what it claims to be the first commercial tyre retread facility in western Canada. The move is in conjunction with its partnership with the tyre dealer Quality Tire Service, one of the largest independent tyre dealers in Saskatchewan.
The new location will operate as a ContiLifeCycle facility, which is the umbrella for Continental Tire’s
retreading operations. ContiLifeCycle is a cradle-to-grave solution that begins with a new Continental tyre and continues with the ContiTread premium retreading solution, to prolong the life of the tyre as well as significantly lower the cost of the tyre.
The 17,400 square-foot-facility employs 15 people and has the capacity to produce up to 24,000
66 Retreading Business
The Tyres, They Are A Changin’