Goodyear Tires Boast 4% Fuel Savings
By Steve Sturgess,
Executive Editor
In response to $3 a gallon fuel, Goodyear has developed fuel-efficient versions of its 300-series tires that offer realistic 4 percent fuel savings when fitted to all wheel positions of a tractor-trailer.
If fact, in testing such as the demonstration witnessed by trucking journalists recently at the proving ground in San Angelo, Texas, SAE Type II testing showed an 8 percent advantage for the new 395 LHS, 305 LHD and 316 LHT tires. But Goodyear – anxious to avoid over-hyping the improvements – says fleets should see "real-world" savings of about half that.
The key to the new tires is the compounding of the under-tread rubber, substituting a much more resilient compound that deflects without generating the heat of more conventional rubbers. With less heat generated, there is more mileage from the truck's fuel tanks, Goodyear says.
The 395 LHS (for line-haul, steer) features a dual compound construction, with the high-mileage tread and the new resilient casing rubber.
The drive 305 LHD is also a dual compound tire, but it features a closed shoulder design with less aggressive block – with no trade-off of wet or dry traction, according to Goodyear. It also has a shallower skid depth, down to 26/32nd from the 32/32nd of the current design.
The trailer tire is also new, a three-compound tire with 12/32nd tread depth and attention to the shoulder to address wear patterns in free-rolling wheel positions.
Launched under the Fuel Max Technology banner, the tires have been brought to market in a year, aided by new computer modeling developed in cooperation with Sandia National Laboratories of Albuquerque, N.M. Tires have been in fleet validation testing since early in the program, and the steer tire went into production in August. The drive followed in September and the trailer LHT will be available this month. Already, they are available to order at International, Volvo, Mack and Freightliner, and by October they will be in the OEMs' data books.
The new tires do not immediately replace the existing 300-Series tires. The steer will likely be the standard offering by the end of the year and the trailer standard by the end of '07. The 305, though, because it has a shallower skid depth, is an entirely new model and will coexist with today's drive tire.
The tires will cost 4 percent to 5 percent more than current products. Goodyear has designed a calculator that allows for fleet parameters to be entered to calculate potential savings. The calculator takes into account the price of fuel, the savings, the premium cost and even the slightly lower mileage to removal for the drive tires with the reduced skid depth.
The calculator is important, said Donn Kramer, Goodyear director of commercial tire marketing, because decisions on tire specs are generally made by different managers than those who make the fuel decisions. For Goodyear's marketing effort on the Fuel Max technology, Kramer said, the company is going to have to get the message across to both disciplines within a fleet so the slight cost per mile increase of the tires can be offset against the significant fuel savings.
At the same press briefing, a film loop explained how the compounding concept works. An engineer holding three different rubber balls dropped them on a hard surface. One bounced hardly at all, representing the absorption of energy as heat within the rubber. The second bounced nicely, but the third reached almost the same height as the original release point, rather like the kids' toy Super Ball.
These three examples reveal the different amounts of energy delivered back by the differently resilient compound. Since the energy retained (as heat) in the tire comes from the fuel tank on the truck – the only energy source on the vehicle – anything that gives back energy instead of generating heat is a more fuel-efficient component.
Hence a cool-running tire is always inherently a more fuel-efficient tire.
