“A tyre that can handle punctures is a breakthrough in terms of higher operating reliability and greater uptime. Every standstill, short or long, costs money and for our customers this makes a huge difference to the construction truck’s overall economy,” says Gunnar Eliasson, business area manager for construction trucks at Volvo Trucks.
Plugs and seals the damaged area
The big innovation in Goodyear’s self-repairing tyre is an extra-soft layer of rubber – a sealing layer. This sealing layer is inserted between the tread and the belted layer. In the event of a puncture, the elastic, jelly-like material immediately plugs and seals the hole and retains the tyre’s air pressure. The tyre can seal holes up to 6 mm in diameter.
The truck spends more time on the job
The repair is permanent and the truck does not need to be withdrawn from traffic. It can continue to be used until the next scheduled service, which means immense benefits in terms of productivity and availability. Major tyre repairs, when the tread layer has to be vulcanised, do not damage the sealing layer.
The Goodyear tyre will be available as an option in the Volvo range as of July 2007. The tyres that will be available are the MSD for the driven axle, dimension 13R22.5. For steering and tag axles, there is the MSS in dimension 13R22.5. At a later stage the dimension 385/65R22.5 will also be available.
April 23, 2007
For further information, please contact: Marie Vassiliadis, phone +46 31 322 41 27, e-mail marie.vassiliadis@volvo.com
