Tire Dealers Speak
Firestone Takes Top Honor in
First Commercial Brands Study
Back in our October 2001 issue, we presented the first part of Tire Review’s annual Tire Brands Study. With this issue, we complete the Study with our first detailed look at medium truck tire brands.
This year we broke the Tire Brands Study down into two segments – Consumer Tires and Commercial Tires. In the past, this Study didn’t differentiate between market segments, so it didn’t take into account that a dealer’s feelings about the brands he carries might vary based on differences between his consumer and commercial businesses. The dealer may be experiencing great success ®“ and higher profits ®“ with one brand on the consumer side, but that same brand may not do as well on the commercial side of the business.
With our annual Tire Brands Study, we capture dealer opinions and perceptions on key matters that can directly relate to the dealer’s ability to successfully market, sell and profit from a tire brand – including order delivery, fill rate and coverage.
Because the commercial side of the business is different than the consumer side, our Commercial Tire Brand Study asked some different questions vs. the other survey. For the Commercial Tire Brands Study, we asked dealers to consider Product Availability, Application Coverage (range of products), Delivery (how quickly orders were shipped), Benefits of Technical Support (materials, training, end-user service, etc.), Product Quality, Product Innovation, Retreadability, Fill Rate (completeness of orders), and Profitability of the Brand.
The survey process was the same for both studies. Dealers were contacted directly by phone, and were asked to grade each tire brand they carried on a number of criteria using a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the highest. Respondents were not permitted to comment on brands they did not carry, end-users were not polled in any way, and Tire Review did not physically test any tires. The results presented here strictly reflect the opinions of tire dealers.
Every effort was made to obtain a fair sampling of responses and assure the number of responses gathered was consistent with accepted industry brand marketshare figures.
It’s important to understand that this annual Study measures only the opinions and perceptions of the tire dealers who carry these brands.
In this year’s survey, 28 individual medium truck tire brands were mentioned by dealers, and the final cutoff for consideration in this year’s Study was 12 mentions. For reporting purposes, only the top seven brands (and all ties) are shown in the results below.
For a complete copy of this year’s Tire Review Tire Brand Study, contact Bob Roberts at 330-670-1234 ext. 252, or at [email protected].
Commercial Tire Brands
Product Availability
Firestone 8.8
Dunlop 8.6
Kelly-Springfield 8.4
Toyo 8.4
Bridgestone 8.4
BFGoodrich 7.9
Kumho 7.9
Michelin 7.6
Cooper 7.5
Yokohama 7.5
Hankook 7.5
Application Coverage
Bridgestone 8.7
Michelin 8.6
Dunlop 8.5
Goodyear 8.4
Firestone 8.4
Toyo 8.3
Hankook 8.3
Kelly-Springfield 8.1
Kumho 8.0
Delivery
Toyo 8.9
Firestone 8.9
Dunlop 8.7
Kelly-Springfield 8.6
Bridgestone 8.4
BFGoodrich 8.1
Michelin 7.9
Yokohama 7.9
Goodyear 7.8
Benefits of Technical Support
Firestone 8.4
Dunlop 8.2
BFGoodrich 7.9
Michelin 7.7
Kelly-Springfield 7.6
Goodyear 7.6
Bridgestone 7.3
Cooper 7.3
Toyo 7.2
Product Quality
Kelly-Springfield 9.0
Firestone 8.9
Dunlop 8.8
Bridgestone 8.8
Toyo 8.8
Michelin 8.6
BFGoodrich 8.6
Goodyear 8.3
Yokohama 8.2
Cooper 8.2
Hankook 7.8
Product Innovation
Firestone 8.6
Bridgestone 8.5
Michelin 8.5
BFGoodrich 8.2
Kelly-Springfield 8.0
Goodyear 7.9
Dunlop 7.8
Yokohama 7.6
Retreadability of Brand
BFGoodrich 8.8
Firestone 8.7
Michelin 8.5
Toyo 8.4
Kelly-Springfield 8.3
Dunlop 8.2
Yokohama 8.1
Fill Rate
Firestone 9.0
Dunlop 8.4
Toyo 8.3
Bridgestone 8.2
Kumho 7.9
Michelin 7.8
Kelly-Springfield 7.8
BFGoodrich 7.7
Profitability of the Brand
Firestone 8.5
Kumho 8.4
Hankook 8.2
Kelly-Springfield 8.1
BFGoodrich 8.1
Toyo 8.1
Yokohama 8.0
Cooper 7.6
General 7.6
Dunlop 7.4
Overall Average Score
Firestone 8.7
Dunlop 8.3
Kelly-Springfield 8.2
Toyo 8.2
Bridgestone 8.2
BFGoodrich 8.1
Michelin 7.9
Goodyear 7.7
Yokohama 7.7
Kumho 7.6
