02/20/2007 "Penny-pinching is sexy", may sound good but can be fatal with trucks

Hanover, February 2007 – A cheap offer is not always a good thing. That's why the Commercial Vehicle Tire division at Continental AG is warning tire dealers, truck drivers and fleet managers to be on their guard against tires pretending to be what they're not. For some time now the police have been paying close attention to tires. Last year the German Federal Office for Goods Transport recorded 630 incidents in which trucks were found to be operating with defective tires. The accident statistics are also alarming. In 2005, according to Germany's Federal Statistical Office, 40,494 truck drivers were involved in accidents in which persons were injured. The devastating consequences: 12,319 truck occupant injuries and 213 fatalities. These accidents also entailed injuries to 37,542 other parties and 945 fatalities.

A known problem defect: The police scrutinizing truck tires.

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Forged tires are showing up more and more frequently in the Eastern Europe countries in particular. Those buying them are putting human life in jeopardy. The reason for this is simple. Although the fakes may exhibit an almost identical tread pattern, they do not have the same road grip as an original high-tech tire. The carcass and tread on all Continental products, for example, form an inseparable unit, although this is not visible to the average consumer from the outside.

These tires are subjected to wide-ranging and sophisticated inspection relative to their intended use before being released onto the market as safety-tested products. Dr. Michael Korpiun, head of marketing at Continental for the Commercial Vehicle Tire division, has this to say about phony tires: "We are aware of cases in which a Conti truck tire tread pattern was copied 1-to-1, but not the sidewalls and the labeling. I can only warn people not to look just at the tire's tread pattern and price." He assumes that fakes make their way to Europe from Asia.

One other thing – those for whom the motto "penny-pinching is sexy" plays a bigger role than safety might very well find themselves in the wrong lane. For the first time the ADAC tested thirteen cheap winter tires. Seven of these were judged to be "not recommendable" on wet roads. Ruprecht Müller, ADAC automotive engineer and tire expert, notes: "Wet properties play an especially important role in the case of winter tires." In testing, the ContiWinterContact TS 810 performed best, with a braking distance of 60 meters at a speed of 100 km/h. The worst tire tested needed more than 75 meters to come to a full stop. The length of the braking distance can make the difference between life and death, though."