Dunlop adds steel to tyre range

Press, 24 February 1978, Page 13

Dunlop adds steel to tyre range

Dunlop New Zealand, Ltd, has announced a range of steel-l ted radial tyres for cars, buses and trucks which, although more expensive than conventional tyres, offer the promise of better road-holding and longer life.

Steel radials have been popular in Europe for years and are expected to be offered as original equipment on a number of New Zealand-assembled cars now that both Dunlop ...id Firestone are making them here.

The advantages of steelbelted radial tyres for cars — longer tread life, improved road-holding, more responsive steering, better braking and better fuel economy — have been well documented overseas. But a further benefit, high puncture resistance, is the key to their use on trucks and buses.

Trucking firms, especially in rough areas such as forests, experience as many as 10 punctures per truck per week, and this means a lot of time lost. Dunlop claims that the steel-belted tyres reduce the risk of punctures by 90 per cent or more and trucking firms could expect to save the extra cost of the tyre with just one puncture saved. Dunlop has also developed a technique for adding steel breakers to conventional truck and bus tyres when they are retreaded. This process is believed to be world first and the technique is being studied by Dunlop in other countries.

Dunlop Steeltrak tyres

for larger cars cost about $7O each, compared with $5O for a conventional tyre of the same size. The new tyres were developed at the company’s factory in Upper Hutt. Test batches of steel-belted tyres, using compounds suited to local conditions.

throughout New Zealand A new tread pattern quite different from the Milespan and Aquajet pal terns, was developed tor the more rigid and interlocking tread surtace needed with steei-beited tyres.