MICHELIN'S innovative 'Stop Thirsty Tyres' campaign has generated such success that the truck tyre market leader has embarked on Phase 2 with a robust market awareness drive centred on extra tyre life and fuel savings through regrooving, coupled with their Ballymena plant opening its portals for a first ever trade press visit and the ubiquitous Mr Bibendum advertising himself as a prolific pole dancer!

The Northern Ireland factory produces over 1.5 million new truck tyres annually and is ranked as one of Michelin's top-five performing truck tyre plants in the world.

The visiting press were introduced to state-of-the-art tyre manufacturing, illustrating why Michelins are particularly suited to regrooving, together with its performance, financial and environmental benefits.

Little wonder that Michelin were quick to launch the second stage of their 'Stop Thirsty Tyres' marketing thrust that aims to encourage the 69% of operators who do not currently regroove their Michelin boots, to get into the regroove!

Dr Helen Buckley, head of marketing for Michelin's truck and earthmover ranges in the UK, explains: "With all our customers, our objective is to sell as few tyres as possible, by providing added value services such as regrooving to ensure each Michelin tyre provides maximum mileage performance and economy. Michelin new and Remix truck tyres are specifically designed to be regrooved by incorporating a layer of rubber sufficiently deep to allow a high quality regroove to take place.  Despite this, only 31% of the Michelin tyres returned to our Remix remoulding plant by truck operators have been regrooved, which effectively means that nearly seven out of every ten operators are missing out on up to a 10% saving on fuel bills and up to 25% extra mileage," she told Transport News.

"Once and for all we would like to dismiss the popular myth that regrooving can damage the integrity of the casing and affect the acceptance rates for remoulding. So long as the regrooving process is carried out by a trained professional, there is little chance of damaging the crown plies and no chance of damaging the casing whatsoever.  In fact, acceptance rates of Michelin tyres for our own Remix remoulding process are as high for regrooved Michelin tyres as they are non-regrooved tyres," she continued.

Paul Kendrick, Michelin's truck product marketing manager, added: "Trials have found that regrooving helps to extend a tyre's most fuel efficient state and can reduce fuel consumption, in comparison with a new tyre, by as much as 10%. This is made possible since a tyre's rolling resistance gradually reduces as the tread depth wears down, with the most fuel efficient state being the last few millimetres of tread - approximately the same depth to which most Michelin truck tyres are regrooved to."

"Rolling resistance is a physical force which accounts for around a third of the fuel a modern truck uses. Under the weight of a vehicle moving on an uneven road surface the shape of a tyre distorts, which makes it harder for the tyre to roll. The physical phenomenon is more pronounced the deeper the rubber is on a tyre, giving brand new tyres the highest rolling resistance of all, and making it beneficial for operators to prolong the life of their tyres through regrooving.

"Another benefit of regrooving is that it makes use of all of the available tread in a tyre so it spends more time in service on the road.  A regrooved tyre therefore wears more slowly since the reduced thickness of the tyre means less tread movement and so, less wear."

"The actual number of extra miles or kilometres a regrooved tyre will achieve depends on many factors. These include truck application, tyre position and even driver behaviour.  However, on average, a Michelin regroove increases either a new or Remix tyre's mileage potential by 25%," concluded Paul Kendrick.

Michelin Tyre plc has manufacturing facilities in Ballymena, Dundee and Stoke-on-Trent, which is also the location of the company's headquarters. In total, Michelin employs nearly 4,000 people in the UK.

Situated 30 miles north west of Belfast, the Michelin Ballymena factory is the only truck tyre manufacturing site on the island of Ireland. It produced its first tyre in December 1969 and currently employs over 1,000 people on a 112 acre site.

More than 70% of its total production capacity is exported, chiefly to North America, with a growing percentage of production supplied to the UK.

Impressive stuff, but hardly surprising when the Michelin worldwide picture is unveiled: 70 manufacturing locations, 129,000 employees and a market leading 15.6 billion Euro turnover.

It all goes back to 1889 in Clermont Ferrand when the first Michelin tyres appeared. UK production started in 1905 and arguably the next big milestone was the launch of the radial tyre in 1946.

According to communications manager Peter Snelling, Michelin's budget for research and development is pegged at 4.5% of turnover, 'which is more than all the others put together.'

'That's why we lead innovation,' he suggests. And as well as topping the truck tyre league, Michelin are of course well known for logotype Mr Bibendum and the Michelin Guide series incorporating 20 million maps and guides produced annually.

Whereas Ballymena creates brand new truck tyres, Michelin's Dundee plant makes car tyres and the Stoke plant majors on Remix retreads, all of which adds up to 1.5 million new tyres and one million retreads annually, making Michelin number one in both sectors.

But ironically they want to sell less tyres to truck operators, thanks to retreading and regrooving.

Michelin expects a first life of 180,000km for a steer tyre and 250,000km per drive tyre. In both instances, this is followed by a regroove, then a Remix, followed by another regroove and in certain instances an 'Encore' retread.

With 80% of the UK's fire brigades now using regrooved tyres, Michelin reckons this underlines the safety attributes of their specialist service provided by appointed agents and made possible by the construction of the initial tyre.

Plant manager Graham Whitehurst suggests that independent retreaders actively discourage regrooving because they cannot cope with exact depths so close to the case.

The Michelin message is compelling: Regroove for only £20 (22.5in dia tyre) and 10 to 15 minutes later you have a 25% gain in mileage and fuel savings. All this against the £250 cost of a new tyre. Retreading on the other hand costs 60% (£150) of the new tyre price.

Of course, one million mile tyre life expectancy is dependent on a number 'givens' particularly concerning inflation levels which should always be as designated; neither over nor under.

Michelin reckon UK operators tend to over-inflate drive tyres and under-inflate steer tyres, but this is not recommended since tyres that are too hard reduce their footprint which has an impact on the tread.

Conversely, under-inflation causes a drag on the road that increases fuel costs and tends to cause understeer, on occasions causing lock up at roundabouts, said Paul Kendrick, who confirmed that with air constituting 80% of the load of a tyre, the trick is to match tyre pressure with load.

Plant manager Graham Whitehurst outlines Michelin's mission - to produce tyres for the world, catering from straight line roads in North America to roundabouts in Europe.

With a 1,100 headcount, Michelin is the biggest employer in Ballymena, ahead of Gallacher and the burgeoning Wrights bus plant who use Mr Bibendum's tyres on all new builds.

On a similar theme, two out of every three trucks built in Europe have Michelin tyres fitted as original equipment.

As far as market trends are concerned, Paul Kendrick sees the continental move towards drive axle singles at 44 tonnes catching on in Britain, when legislation allows us over the 40t barrier.

Petrol tankers are now going for lower centre of gravity 55 size tyres, in fact reports indicate that when a driver goes back to a rig with 65s, he finds it 'unstable'.

However, marketing manager Paul's over-riding regroove message from Ballymena was; 'We want hauliers to spend less on tyres, but they should spend this 'less' with Michelin.'