Trax, the UK’s leading producer of wheel balancing weights, is moving into environmentally friendly production. The company has expanded its Welsh factory, and installed new machinery to enable it to produce steel weights.

Managing Director John Halle explained, “We have developed a unique design and manufacturing method which is the subject of three patent applications. The new steel weights are designed to perform the same as the current Trax zinc weights, which includes the ‘cam-backed’ weights for steel wheels which have been widely accepted as the most universal available.”

Trax will become the first company in Europe to offer steel weights, which are becoming increasingly popular world wide. This growing popularity is due to the fact that steel weights are more environmentally friendly than the traditional zinc weights. Steel weights are lead-free, and are more easily recycled. Many countries are now insisting on lead-free weights, and leading tyre producers are moving in the same direction.

The new steel weights should go on sale in the UK at the beginning of 2009.

The Dunlop Drivers Club stand was one of the great successes at last weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Sir Stirling Moss was present, reunited with the C-Type Jaguar that he drove in 1953. Sir Stirling talked about the introduction of Dunlop’s disc brakes and gave his take on the life of the modern day racing driver.

Dunlop also took the opportunity to launch their new web-site, www.dunlopdriversclub.co.uk. The site tells the story of Dunlop’s 120 year history, as well as giving news, videos and road tests. It also offers visitors the opportunity to meet track stars at VIP events.

James Bailey of Dunlop Tyres said: “The Goodwood Festival of Speed is all about three days of glamorous cars and the glory days of motorsport. At Dunlop Drivers Club, members will have access to that same atmosphere where petrolheads can interact, share opinions, get the latest news and gain access to exclusive Dunlop promotions.”

The site will also post a series of masterclasses with professional driver coach Mark Hales.

Dunlop will be celebrating its history of success on the race track at this week-end’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. The company will be illustrating how success on the race track has been crucial to the development of high performance road tyres.

Dunlop has enjoyed a legendary collaboration with Jaguar, winning six Le Mans 24 hour races. At Goodwood Dunlop will be exhibiting the new Jaguar XKR road car alongside Le Mans winning Jaguars. Following their race track partnership, Dunlop has developed tyres that offer the precise handling, responsiveness and road-holding that Jaguar drivers demand. The Jaguar XK and XKR are fitted with Dunlop Sport Maxx tyres as standard. This tyre boasts a multi radius tread, which gives an accurate tread pattern and an especially efficient contact patch.

Dunlop is sponsoring this year’s BTCC championship, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In acknowledgement of this milestone, Dunlop will be showcasing the only 4 wheel drive car to win the BTCC. The Audi A4 Quattro, driven by Frank Biela, won the event in 1996, and Biela will be on the Dunlop stand to talk about his victorious year.

Dunlop still work with Audi, supplying tyres for the current A4 DTM race cars. Off the race circuit, Dunlop also supply their Sport Maxx GT tyres to the latest Audi S5. The tyres feature Dunlop’s Touch Technology, which was first developed on the race track.

Most tyre manufacturers now offer a range of winter tyres to suit most vehicles, but the question arises as to how suitable these are to the UK market. Our winters are getting progressively milder, so do we need specialist winter tyres? According to Kumho Tyres, the answer is a resounding yes.

Kumho, who supply winter tyres to markets throughout Europe, claim that UK motorists need winter tyres because of the unpredictability of our climate. Any time from October onwards, a cold snap could be just around the corner. The term “winter tyres” conjures up an image of tyres designed to drive across freezing, snow-covered landscapes, but, in reality their real use is in combating cold conditions. Kumho prefer to refer to their tyres as “cold-weather tyres”, thereby emphasizing their real role.

One key factor in maintaining a tyres performance is temperature, when this drops below 7 degrees C performance suffers. At this temperature the tyre tread compound approaches what is referred to as the “glass transition temperature”. This involves the rubber turning from a pliable substance to a rigid block. The tread compound in cold weather tyres enjoys a much lower glass transition temperature, and, consequently, gives greater traction and more efficient braking.

Kumho believe that it is important to get this point across to British motorists in order to maximize road safety in cold, winter conditions.

There have been some curious goings on in cyberspace recently. An attempt to view Dunlop’s website came up with some strange results. Type in www.dunlop-tyres.co.uk, and what comes up - the website of Dunlop’s rivals Michelin. Another search under www.dunlop.co.uk brought up a site belonging to David Dunlop of Essex. Apparently the correct address is www.dunloptyres.co.uk. Confusing, and I thought computers were supposed to simplify life!

Last year tyre manufacturer Continental AG boosted its annual turnover through the take over of Siemens VDO. Now the German tyre giant appears to be a victim of its own success. The company is now the subject of a takeover from the Schaeffler Group.

Continental’s success in leveraging the takeover of Siemens and its use of the stock market has had something of a sting in the tail as shareholders look set to improve their position by accepting the bid from Schaeffler. The 13.5 billion euro loan required to buy Siemens has left Continental vulnerable to stock market manoeuvrings. The huge loan, added to the joint problem of the rising cost of raw materials and a slow-down in sales, has pushed Conti’s share price down and left them vulnerable to an unwanted approach from Schaeffler.

This fact was highlighted in a recent report by market analysts Morgan Stanley, who stated that Continental were “the most levered company under our coverage” with debts representing more than 80 percent of the company’s value.

It seems that this is a story that will run for some time yet.

It seems that success with the ladies can be achieved by keeping your car in good order. According to a report from a leading tyre retailer a smart car may be more important than stylish clothes or a finely honed physique.

The tyre company’s research showed that 44 percent of women are influenced in their choice of partner by the state of his car. In what may be seen as a staggering indictment of the shallowness of British women, the report claims that 750 thousand women admit that they have dated a man simply because they liked is car. Equally worrying is the fact that 330,000 British women stated that they had continued a relationship because they liked their partner’s car. Another 230,000 admitted that they had dumped their partner because of the state of his car.

It appears that dirty paintwork and bald tyres are a real turn-off for a fair percentage of the fair sex. Of course, we, more profound, males would not be interested in such shallow partners, unless her bodywork was equally good.

Fears over safety have prompted Birmingham City Council’s Trading Standards officers to call for stricter rules governing tyre repair workshops. This follows the discovery that, at a recent two-day training course, tyre repair workers performed imperfect repairs on fifty percent of the tyres supplied.

In addition, a survey by a “mystery Shopper” found that of 13 part-worn tyres, 11 were incorrectly labeled and two were unfit for use. Birmingham’s Trading Standards officers visited repair shops with 12 punctured tyres, of which four were repaired illegally.

Chris Neville, acting head of Trading Standards, stated, “anyone can set up a tyre repair business with no training, which has implications for safety.” He added that of the 60 workshop staff invited to participate in the two-day free course, only 28 attended. All attending the course passed the mystery inspections conducted by officers.

The chairman of Birmingham City Council’s public protection committee, Neil Eustace, has called for tyre repair workshops to be licensed and monitored in the manner of MoT test centres. “They should be licensed,” he said. “If they are not doing their job, then they are putting lives at risk”.

At etyres we offer a free repair service to all our customers, and we work strictly to the following standards.

The “repairable area” of a tyre is designated as that where a repair can be carried out to British Standards (currently BS AU 159f).

Because a tyre curves away from the middle of where the tyre rolls on the road, only the centre area is repairable. Sidewalls are not repairable.

The repairable area is defined as a percentage of the tyre’s “nominal” section width and thus varies by the size of the tyre. The repairable area is based on the centre line, eg. 82mm means 41mm on either side of the centre line of the tyre.

Look elsewhere on our website for a handy REPAIRABLE AREA TREAD GAUGE, which will enable you to find out if a puncture in your tyre is likely to be repairable.

Note that a tyre may not be repairable if the hole is larger than 3mm or there is other internal damage to the tyre.

Higher car-tax, burgeoning fuel prices and environmental concerns appear to be having an effect on the thinking of British motorists. Insurance retailer Swinton has noticed a move away from larger cars, and a significant increase of interest in small-engined vehicles.

Swinton have analysed their database of motor insurance quotes, and found a notable change in the pattern of quote requests. The sector that has been hardest hit is the larger, four-wheel drive vehicle market. Over the past year, Swinton has seen a decline of 16 percent in the demand for quotes for Hummers and large 4×4’s, such as Range Rover. Their findings echo the figures released in a recent report by The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), who revealed that sales of SUVs have declined by 18 percent during the past year.

Swinton also reports a decline, of 11 percent, in motorists requesting quotes for smaller Sports Utility Vehicles. Meanwhile quotes for vehicles with engines smaller than 1.5 litres have increased by 20 percent during the same period. Swinton’s data-analysts claim that this is clearly a reflection of motorists’ concerns over rising fuel costs, car-tax bands and global warming.

Another trend highlighted by the report is that of motorists reducing mileage. Swinton report that they are receiving an increasing number of requests for quotes on low-mileage insurance. The company feels that the recent 30 percent hike in fuel prices has prompted motorists to look towards public transport and car-sharing schemes.

It appears that many two-car families are now taking one of their vehicles off the road. Over the past year there has been an increase of SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) declarations to the DVLA. This saves the motorist money, but may also be a reflection of the fact that larger cars are currently losing value at an appalling rate. Chris Collings, Swinton’s Director of Insurer Development, explained, “The value of larger second hand cars, even with very low mileage, has plummeted and many owners would prefer to stack their car on bricks rather than realise its low value now. It is possible that we will be seeing more people declaring their cars off road as drivers feel the squeeze and tighten their belts”.

With London’s congestion charge becoming an emissions charge, and motorists’ increasing awareness of environmental concerns, the trend towards smaller, eco-friendly vehicles is becoming firmly established. Sales of Band B cars, those producing less than 120g/km of CO2, have increased by 20 percent over the past year.

Station Road in Scholes, east of Leeds, has the dubious honour of being the worst road in Britain according to a recent survey commissioned by Continental Tyres.

The survey based its findings on a number of criteria, including the size and quantity of potholes, the potential danger to road users and vehicles, the number of complaints to local authorities and the time span of its disrepair. The findings were verified by campaigning organization “fillthathole”.

It seems the competition was quite tough. Other “stars” featured in the report were Castle Street, Renfrewshire which boasts hundreds of metres of potholes and bumps, Scotforth Rd in Lancaster where motorists are forced to swerve into oncoming traffic by a plethora of sunken manhole covers and potholes, and Mill Ave, Hillingdon which has numerous potholes measuring half a metre across.

The condition of Britain’s roads is of increasing concern. A recent survey by the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance group (ALARM) revealed that there are over a million potholes in our roads, and these badly maintained roads are costing motorists £2.8 million a year for repairs to damaged vehicles. Repairing our roads and bringing them up to an acceptable standard would cost over £1 billion, and maintenance work is 11 years behind schedule. In the last six months the “fillthathole” web-site has received 4,217 hazard reports concerning dangerous roads.

A report by the British Tyre Manufacturers Association, released in 2003, stated that impact damage was the second biggest cause for the early removal of tyres. Continental Tyres state that the volume of tyres returned to them because of impact damage has increased by 60 percent since 2001. A spokesman for the company said, “Road conditions have a huge effect on the performance and safety of tyres. Impact with pothole edges or sunken grates can cause severe tyre damage which could lead to dangerous blow-outs on the road”.