Fleet Maintenance - 38

ADVE R T O R IAL

Sponsored by
Cooper Tire

Cooper Tire Completes
Tire Lineup for Long-Haul
With the introduction of Cooper Tire's
PRO Series LHT (long haul trailer) tire,
Cooper is now positioned with a complete
lineup of high performance drive, steer
and trailer tires for fleet customers.
"This completes our Cooper Commercial
Series as we now have fitments for all
positions," said Gary Schroeder, Executive
Director of Cooper's Global Truck and Bus
Tire Business. "We are gaining momentum
with our Cooper signature brand. Our
tires are highly engineered, fleet tested,
and are well received by those who run
our Cooper Commercial Series. The
tires deliver as promised and that's why
we offer the industry-leading warranty
program that we do."
The PRO Series joins the Cooper WORK
Series (regional haul) and Cooper SEVERE
Series (mixed service) tires.
The Cooper Commercial Series,
launched in 2018, is Cooper's premium
line of truck and bus radial (TBR) tires.
The line was designed to compete
against top tier tires that offer long miles
to removal, coupled with uniform wear
for retreadability. "But the Cooper difference is we're bringing very high quality
tires to market at a lower price point,"
said Schroeder. "This gives us a low cost
of ownership advantage, and that's what
fleets are looking for."
According to Schroeder, the Cooper
brand philosophy of high performance
at a competitive price is evident in all the
company's tires. "Our Cooper passenger
and SUV/ light truck tires, for example,
have been recognized for innovation and
quality," he said.

"While the trucking industry doesn't
have agencies that recognize commercial
tires as do passenger tires, we're confident that if it did, our Cooper PRO Series
would make the grade," said Schroeder.
Schroeder said there are three factors
in developing a high quality commercial
truck tire: the casing, tire design and engineering, and manufacturing precision.
"They all have to work together in order to
produce a quality tire," he said.
That quality, according to Schroeder,
begins with a strong tire casing. "That's
the foundation -- the backbone of the
tire," he said. "One of the keys to low
cost of ownership in a tire is the ability
for multiple retreads. The more retreads,
the lower your overall cost, and it's why
we spend so much time in the design
and construction of our casings. Our
PRO Series, for example, utilizes a fourbelt steel design. If we didn't have such
a robust casing, we wouldn't be able to
offer such a comprehensive warranty.
It's a seven-year, two-retread warranty.
And, we warrant for full replacement
value for the first 50 percent of treadwear. It showcases the confidence we
have in these tires.
"Next comes tread design and
compounding, which provides traction, the
ability to ward off stone drilling through our
patent-pending stone ejector technology,
while giving tires fuel efficiency and chunk
and tire resistance," Schroeder continued.
"There is so much that goes into tire design
- balancing performance with the ability to
provide long miles to removal. It's really an
art, and we feel we have skilled designers

at Cooper who really meet the challenge.
We also have a compounding team that
constantly looks for new 'ingredients' to
help reduce rolling resistance. And we're
excelling. In our steer and trailer tires for
example, we not only exceed SmartWay
standard requirements by 15 percent,
but meet the EPA's GHG (greenhouse gas)
requirements set for 2021."
For any tire to live out its design life,
uniform wear must happen. "And that's
a function of tire design, the manufacturing quality, and ultimately the
maintenance practices of the fleet," said
Schroeder. "If a fleet keeps proper alignments, our tires will run out to their
prescribed pull point - be it 4/32nds for
drive or 2/32nds for steers. If your tire
can't run uniform, then you're pulling
early and those are lost miles."
To help ensure uniform wear, tires leaving the manufacturing plant must be a
virtual clone of each other. "By that we
mean we have exact specs and exact
processes for each tire during the build
process," Schroeder explained. "We have
stringent tire quality measures in place
to ensure our tires meet the exact specs.
Part of what we use at Cooper is x-ray and
uniformity machines to inspect every tire
coming off the line."

Cooper National
Account Fleet Service
Program Going Strong
Launched in October 2015, Cooper Tire's
National Account Fleet Service Program
continues to grow by offering competitive and uniform coast-to-coast tire pricing and service coupled with centralized
direct billing. "It streamlines the tire
buying process for our fleet customers,
while also giving them peace of mind with
our National Emergency Road Service,"
said Schroeder.
"Now that we have our signature
Cooper brand fully launched - for longhaul, regional and mixed service - we're
accelerating our work with fleets in
National Accounts. They're realizing the
benefits of working with us, and our
commitment to providing high quality
tires at price points that give them a low
cost of ownership proposition."

Fleet Maintenance

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