Sumitomo Rubber has announced it will stop U.S. OE production of Goodyear’s Dunlop brand in 2018 at its Buffalo, N.Y., plant to instead focus on it’s own Falken Tire brand, according to an article in Nikkei Asian Review.
The plant was acquired from Goodyear in 2015 when Sumitomo Rubber ended its partnership.
According to the article, Sumitomo Rubber plans to invest some 10 billion yen ($90.3 million) to upgrade aging equipment and double production capacity there to 10,000 tires a day by the end of 2019. Equipment that had been producing passenger car and bus tires for Goodyear will be replaced to manufacture Fallen-brand tires, primarily to serve the SUV marketplace. The plant will first increase output of aftermarket tires, with plans to begin shipping tires for new cars to automakers in 2019. The company will continue OE production for Goodyear in places outside the U.S.
