Bridgestone Archives - Page 210 of 278 - Tyrepress

Based in Japan, Bridgestone Corporation is the world’s largest tyre and rubber company.

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Bridgestone produces snow tyres for F1

Bridgestone Motorsport has produced a special Limited Edition F1 Potenza Snow Tyre at the request of the BMW Sauber F1 Team. The team will be holding a demonstration of at the prestigious White Turf horse racing event in the Swiss resort town of St. Mortiz, and special tyres are required due to the extreme conditions in which the BMW Sauber F1.06 will run.

The F1 snow tyres, produced by Bridgestone Motorsport’s Technical Centre in Tokyo, feature 420 studs on each of the front tyres and 588 studs on each rear tyre. It took two Bridgestone technicians over 16 hours to manually insert all 2,016 studs into the double layer of tread compound on one set of tyres alone.

10th April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Kumho Adds Three Sales Managers

Career Tracks, International News, News

(Akron/Tire Review) Kumho Tire USA Inc. has added three sales managers to its ranks.

Aaron Duty joins Kumho as a regional sales manager for southern California and Arizona. He had been a district sales manager for Toyo Tire (USA) Corp. Before that, he served as a service technician with Sears Automotive and previously as a fabricator and engineering laboratory technician. Duty earned a Bachelor’s degree in business administration from California Polytechnic State University.

John Krajewski has been appointed a regional sales manager for Wisconsin, Illinois and northern Michigan. He spent 15 years with U.S. Tire & Exhaust and five years with Chem-Trend, a company that sells mould release chemicals to the tyre industry. Krajewski earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Northern Illinois University.

5th April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

BFNAT Reaches Tentative Agreements With Union

(Akron/Tire Review) Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire (BFNAT) and its Bridgestone/Firestone Diversified Products division announced that tentative agreements have been reached with the United Steelworkers (USW).

The tyremaker said that a tentative agreement has been signed for the master contract with the USW, which covers employees at tyre plants in Akron, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; LaVergne, Tenn., as well as the Firestone tube plant in Russellville, Ark., and the Firestone air spring plant in Noblesville, Ind.

“Tentative agreements have also been reached for the maintenance group located in the LaVergne, Tenn., tyre plant and for the tyre plant in Bloomington, Ill.,” stated BFNAT.

5th April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Lassa’s Impetus Sport Gains Stamp of Approval

Germany’s TÜV standards organisation has recently accredited Lassa’s Impetus Sport tyre as having fulfilled their strict criteria regarding levels of performance, durability and handling. This is credit that Martin West, Lassa’s European director of marketing and business development believes confirms what users of the tyre already know. “We’ve been getting great feedback from drivers ever since we launched the Impetus Sport”, he commented. “It’s extremely satisfying to all of us at Lassa now that the innovation and technology that went into it has been recognised by our industry”.

Lassa say that the W-speed rated Impetus Sport has already become popular with distributors and dealers across Europe thanks to its combination of good looks and responsive, accurate performance. Designed in collaboration with The Bridgestone Technical Centre, the Impetus Sport possesses a number of design features Lassa believe helped it to achieve TUV certification, including a unidirectional pattern with wide circumferential grooves – designed to provide a high resistance to aquaplaning, a compound that maximises the tyres wet-grip handling, and reinforced body-ply and belt edges that allow for greater stability at high speeds.

4th April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone Ranked as Top Foreign Investor in Poland

Poland’s leading monthly business magazine, Forbes Poland, has named Bridgestone as the top foreign investor in Poland for 2006. This distinction is based upon data supplied by Poland’s Ministry of Economy, which reveals that the total value of Bridgestone’s investment in Poland during the year exceeded that of all other overseas companies, including leading investors such as Dell, Sharp and Toyota.

4th April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Bandag Shareholders Approve Sale

Bandag Inc. held their final shareholders’ meeting on April 3, at which shareholders approved the sale of the retreader to Bridgestone Americas Holding, subsidiary of the Japanese tyre major, for US$1.05 billion. Bandag will become part of the US Bridgestone operation once the deal closes, which is expected to take place during the second quarter. Bandag spokesman Bill Block said the companies are awaiting regulatory approval in Europe and Canada before the deal is completely finalised, but anticipate no complications.

4th April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

White Grooves to Differentiate F1 Tyres

Bridgestone has confirmed it will use white markings to distinguish the softer compound tyre options used in the Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix. The marking, applied to the bottom of the tyres’ second inside groove, was one of a number of options tested during practice days in Sepang following complaints about the red dots used during the Australian Grand Prix.

3rd April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

BFNT Raises Prices – Raw Material Costs to Blame

Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire (BFNT) has announced price increases on the company’s Bridgestone, Firestone, Fuzion and associate brand tyre ranges. The announced increases are generally up to 5 per cent on passenger and light truck, truck and bus, and agricultural and OTR tyres, although the company has not ruled out increased above 5 per cent for specific lines. The increases will affect replacement, OE and export tyres and will become effective as of May 1, 2007.

BFNT believe circumstances leave them with no option other than to implement these increases. “The continuing upward spiral of raw material costs makes this action necessary,” said Asahiko “Duke” Nishiyama, Vice Chairman and President of BFNT. “This unprecedented situation is simply not one that can be managed through the enhanced efficiencies and increased productivity that we are continually implementing at all levels of our company. As a result, we have no choice but to implement this price increase.”

2nd April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone workers back on the job

Workers at Bridgestone Australia’s Salisbury factory in South Australia returned to work on Monday (April 2) after a three-day lockout without pay. However, while they may be back at work, their pay dispute is no closer to being resolved and further industrial action has been planned for the coming weeks.

Colin Fenney from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union told Australian media that the lockout has only strengthened the workers’ resolve. “They’re a bit angry at the moment actually because, like I say, the company’s locked them out,” he said, adding that the employees had become ‘stronger’ and ‘more united’ through the experience.

2nd April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Jobs to Go, New Jobs Created by Bridgestone Move

Bridgestone Aircraft Tire (USA) is gearing up to move its operations from Florida to North Carolina, and in the process has been required to lay off a number of its Miami area employees. The Bridgestone division announced the impending move in May 2006 and says that the 52 employees will be laid off between May 19 and June 30.

However one community’s misfortune is another’s opportunity, and Bridgestone Aircraft has previously announced it will create 95 new jobs at the division’s soon to open 160,000 square foot facility in Mayodan, North Carolina by the end of the year.

2nd April 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Sameer Africa Reports Losses

Sameer Africa recently announced that it had accrued 22 million Kenyan shillings (£164,000) of losses after sales were hit by a sudden influx low price imported tyres. Speaking during the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the firm’s Mombasa Road Plant, Sameer Africa Board Chairman Naushad Merali said the sales nosedive of locally manufactured tyres followed the reduction of imported tyre tariffs from 35 to 10 per cent. Merali however noted that the fact Bridgestone has not withdrawn its 14.5 per cent share-holding in the company was a sign of Bridgestone’s confidence in Sameer Africa’s potential.

According to local news sources, Sameer has made “strategic alliances” with other international tyre manufacturers to increase its product offering in the regional market. The Kenya times reported that this includes off-take agreements with brands such as Bridgestone, Dunlop South Africa and Hankook.

30th March 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone Serbian Sales Up

Bridgestone is currently selling 25,000 tyres annually in the Serbian and Montenegrin markets, local news sources have reported. This figure was revealed by the company’s country manager for Serbia Goran Kočovski, who added that the sales of truck and passenger vehicle tyres were at equal levels. According to one local newspaper, Bridgestone holds a 10 per cent share of Serbia’s truck tyre market, and plans to double the sales in five years’ time. The company is reportedly aiming to increase passenger car sales 20 to 30 per cent a year in the area.

29th March 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone to Unveil “New Generation of Tyres” at CV Show

Bridgestone has announced that it will present a complete range of new generation tyres at this year’s Commercial Vehicle Show, at the NEC in April. Bridgestone’s pioneering collection will be revealed at this year’s show, encompassing the R249 and R168, as well as their most recent addition to the family, the M749.

The introduction of the Bridgestone M749 highway drive-axle tyre (first published in T&A September 2006) follows the launch of the R249 steer-axle and R168 trailer-axle tyres, and completes Bridgestone’s new generation long distance highway line-up. The range has been engineered to improve cost efficiency due to excellent rolling resistance and superior mileage as well as their capacity for future retreading.

29th March 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone Australia Locks Workers Out

In a continuation of the industrial action that has hampered operations at Bridgestone Australia since the start of March, on the evening of March 27 the tyremaker locked around 450 workers out of its Adelaide plant and suspended production for three days. The affected staff are mainly those working in a production or maintenance capacity at the plant.

Bridgestone claims its action was a necessary response to three weeks of union agitation, including strikes, overtime bans, and work stoppages. “This is about survival of the plant in a tough automotive manufacturing environment,” stated a Bridgestone spokeswoman.

Earlier in the day union representatives had met with plant management to discuss the dispute over pay rises, however the two parties failed to reach any agreement.

28th March 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone Tests New Tyre Markings

During the first day of tests in Sepang on March 27 Bridgestone evaluated potential methods for visibly distinguishing its ‘option’ tyres at the upcoming Malaysian grand prix and subsequent races. The company received much criticism regarding the 3cm white sidewall dot placed on the tyres at the season’s opening race in Australia, as the marking proved almost impossible to recognise either trackside or in the pitlane.

The option judged the most effective was apparently the white colouration of the tyre’s outside groove. However, the need to bow to the pressures of ease of application means that it is more likely that large red dots will be painted on the sidewall for the Sepang race. Bridgestone tested the use of single and double 10cm dots and was reportedly satisfied with their efficacy.

28th March 2007/by Tyrepress Editors