As BFGoodrich works to wrap up a refresh of its commercial truck tire portfolio and celebrates its 150th anniversary, the company announced the launch of two new regional tires—the Route Control S (steer/all-position) and Route Control D (drive).
During a June 9 press conference, Adam Murphy, vice president of B2B marketing for Michelin North America, explained that the launch of the BFGoodrich Route Control brand is geared toward urban and regional truck markets. Two years ago, BFGoodrich started out with a refresh of the entire brand of commercial truck tires, beginning with reintroducing on- and off-road tires, then linehaul, and now regional and urban. Murphy noted the refresh will wrap up in the next year or so.
Murphy emphasized that truck segments operating in regional and urban conditions have experienced an “unbelievable level of growth, clearly being driven by the increasing demand of all consumers” during the pandemic.
“Uptime is more important than ever,” he said. “What’s required for fleets to deliver that uptime and stay up and running even during the toughest conditions very much comes down to benefits like traction and durability.”
For regional and urban fleets, uptime means tires have all-weather grip, real toughness and durability, and long tread life, Murphy added.
The BFGoodrich Route Control S tire will replace the BFGoodrich ST 230. According to the company, the tire is engineered to provide long tread life and even-wear performance. Optimized microsiping technology fights the onset of irregular wear across the tread, and zigzag, flow-through grooves provide “outstanding water evacuation and grip,” according to BFGoodrich.
The Route Control S is available in sizes 11R22.5, 11R24.5, 275/80R22.5 and 285/75R24.5, with the 255/70R22.5 (Load Range H) arriving in the third quarter of 2020. The 245/70R19.5 urban size was previously released with the popular 225/70R19.5 size arriving in the third quarter.
The BFGoodrich Route Control D tire is a new regional offering in the product lineup. Route Control D offers the traction and long-wearing tread necessary in regional applications, the company noted. The drive tire has an open-shoulder, directional tread pattern to deliver maximum all-weather traction, according to BFGoodrich.
The Route Control D tire is available in sizes 11R22.5 and11R24.5 (Load Range H) and 275/80R22.5 (Load Range G). It is also available in urban size 245/70R19.5, with the popular 225/70R19.5 size arriving in the third quarter (Load Range H).
For the Route Control line, BFGoodrich is offering a six-month road test guarantee for the first six months of use or before 50% of its usable tread life. The company also offers a five-year/two-retread manufacturer’s limited casing guarantee.
“Our fleets work hard. Never has that been truer than over the last few months,” Murphy said. “We do everything we can to keep up, leveraging our history of proven performance and all-weather confidence, uptime, retreadability, and backed by the Work Hard guarantee, so our fleets can have confidence in our ability to do the job right along with them.”