Major tire-makers deny Nokian’s test-fix claims

Article published in the March/April issue of ERJ

London – Tire makers have distanced themselves from what Nokian Tyre has claimed to be an industry practice – to use specially-made tires to improve results in tire-tests.

Nokian announced on 26 Feb that the quality of the tires it offered to tire tests had been different from the ones available on the shelves.

“We admit that we are guilty of sending pre-produced tires for testing, sometimes half a year before their production started and sometimes the tires were a bit different from the ones that went on the shelves,” Nokian vice president, marketing and communications Antti-Jussi Tahtinen told ERJ.

And we are sorry about this practice, which has been “quite normal” in the tire industry, he added.

As Nokian came clean about having, at one stage, provided “bespoke” tires to testing centres to achieve better results, rival manufacturer Michelin issued a public statement saying it “never designed or manufactured tires specifically for tests conducted by the media, automobile associations or any other organisations.”

The French tire-maker added that it had “for years conducted reproducible tests that reflect real life driving conditions using series production tires. Michelin has always been committed to ensuring that the conditions used to test its tires faithfully represent the conditions encountered by consumers in their actual day-to-day usage.”

Likewise, Germany’s Continental said in a written response to ERJ that its tires that are tested are “always identical to those available on the market.

“To the best of our knowledge, the magazines that run the tests aim to publish ratings for products that are available on the market at the time publication is planned.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by Korean tire-maker Hankook, which said it was “not producing nor supplying special sample tires just for third party tests. When tires are submitted to testing parties/ magazines upon their request, they are already available in the market or – in the case of new products – will be available by the time test results are being published.”

Japan’s Bridgestone also denied having such procedure in place, adding it “did not produce and has never produced specific tires for comparative tire tests in magazines or by independent third party testing organisations.

“Bridgestone considers tire tests as a benchmark for delivering the highest quality to its customers. Consequently, all its tires tested at any time are and have always been available for sale,” it added.