All That’s Trucking blog by Deborah Lockridge, Editor in Chief
So, have you noticed the high price of tires lately?
Of course you have.
One of the great things about now being part of a larger media group is sharing information with our sister magazines. Over at Modern Tire Dealer, they do a good job of reporting tire price hikes.
Back in March, MTD analyst Saul Ludwig reported that since the start of 2012 there had been a sharp upturn in nearly every raw material that a tire manufacturer uses. Carbon black was up 20% and other key ingredients such as natural rubber, butadiene and styrene (used to make synthetic rubber), zinc oxide and chemicals all had turned up, too.
As a result, Goodyear announced a 5% increase on truck tire prices, Continental announced up to 9% hike, Yokohama raised prices 8%, Double Coin went up 5%.
All those price hikes led our counterparts at Work Truck magazine to wonder about medium-duty tires.
According to an article by Work Truck Editor Mike Antich in late 2011, tire prices have increased an average of 6% to 9% per year for fleets, with higher prices forecast to continue their upward trends. Truck tire shipments, according to the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA), were up 15.4% for truck tires.
So, Work Truck and HDT want to know, what are your truck tire purchasing trends? If your fleet purchases medium-duty truck tires, please, take a moment and check out our brief, confidential questionnaire:
www.surveymonkey.com/s/2012_TireUsage
We’ll share the results in a future issue or blog post.
Related Stories:
May 2012 – Tires Wheels: MPG for Mediums
5/23/2012 – New Rubber Source: Russian Dandelions?
3/12/2012 – Bridgestone Launches Project to Develop Sustainable Source of Natural Rubber
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