Conti’s Mexico retread plant begins shipments

May 26, 2011

Continental Tire the Americas LLC (CTA) has begun shipments of its flat precure treads from a new central manufacturing plant in Morelia, Mexico. Plans are to eventually distribute the products throughout the Americas.

For its ContiLifeCycle business, Continental's Commercial Vehicle Tires division officially opened its Morelia tread manufacturing facility on April 27, 2011. The plant will fulfill the increasing demand for retreaded truck tires as Continental expands its lifecycle solution for trucking fleets.

The 33,000 square-foot plant is currently producing 7,500 rolls of flat precure treads monthly, which is enough to retread 22,500 truck tires. According to John Barnes, ContiLifeCycle manager, capacity is already increasing to approximately 500,000 retreads annually, and the plant will be expanded to meet production levels of more than one million flat retreads annually by 2015.

"With this plant implementation, Continental is assuring its customers a high quality precure tread, along with reduced costs and delivery time throughout the Americas," Barnes says. "The new ContiLifeCycle plant in Morelia is already supplying our six retread plants throughout Mexico and is poised to begin shipments to our locations in Ecuador. In the future, it will adequately supply our network of retread licensees throughout the Americas."

Under the ContiLifeCycle solution, Continental offers retreaded truck tires that maximize the lifetime of a truck tire and reduce the total cost of operating a trucking fleet, without sacrificing performance, comfort, fuel saving or quality, the company says. ContiLifeCycle products are manufactured to have the same tread designs and engineering features as new Continental truck tires, for a match in performance. (For more information on ContiLifeCycle, see ContiLifeCycle plans to expand across the land.)

The flat treads produced from the Morelia plant currently include ContiLifeCycle HDL Eco Plus (Heavy Drive Long Haul), HTL Eco Plus (Heavy Trailer Long Haul), HDR1 (Heavy Drive Regional) and D450 (a General brand drive tire). The plant also recently began producing the ContiLifeCycle retread for the HSR (Heavy Steer Regional) and HSC (Heavy Steer Construction) tires for Mexico in 18/32nds of tread depth, and will soon expand to a 23/32nds product.