Toyo adds two tires to Open Country line

BOSTON—Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. has added two tires to its Open Country family of products as the tire company looks to boost its light truck offerings to keep up with market growth.

The light truck category—including sport-utility vehicles, crossover utility vehicles and pickup trucks—accounted for 57 percent of U.S. new light vehicle sales in 2015, a far cry from the 20 percent share of new vehicle sales the segments accounted for in the 1980s, according to Chris Gomez, a Toyo product marketing manager.

“Even in the depth of the recession, still about 50 percent of vehicles fell under light truck,” he said during a launch event Toyo held in Boston. “In the worst of times, it still made up a very healthy portion of the industry.”

And Toyo's sales in the U.S. follow that trend, with more than 50 percent of its sales in what the firm considers light truck series, said Roy Bromfield, Toyo Tire U.S.A. president and chief operating officer. “We have a tremendous passion for light truck tires,” he said. “The light truck market is booming, and we're trying to address essentially every need in the light truck market.”

At the Boston event, Toyo unveiled the Open Country Q/T all-season touring tire, along with the Open Country C/T, an on/off road commercial grade tire.

The Q/T—standing for quiet terrain—is designed for a range of vehicles from CUVs to luxury SUVs. Toyo said it offers a quiet, comfortable ride, long tread life and an attractive design. Fitments include such vehicles as the Acura MDX, Cadillac Escalade, BMW X-series, the Toyota Rav-4 and the Porsche Macan.

It is offered in 35 sizes with rim diameters ranging from 16-22 inches and boasts a 65,000-mile warranty. Toyo said its Silent Wall-brand technology provides a quieter ride by reducing pipe resonance, and four wide circumferential tread grooves improve wet traction by evacuating water while open lateral slits improve water drainage.

Nearly all major auto makers have either an SUV or CUV, ranging from entry level Kia lines to luxury vehicles, Gomez said. “There's really an insatiable demand and supply of these products in the marketplace. We'll have fitments for all of these offerings.”

Todd Bergeson, a Toyo senior product manager, said the Q/T will be a good first replacement tire when customers are replacing their OE tires. “It's going to be very similar to how your vehicle drove when it was brand new on the original tires,” he said.

The Q/T will serve as an indirect replacement for the Toyo Versado CUV all-season touring line, which is being discontinued. Bromfield said Versado is Toyo's luxury touring line, so the move made sense because Open Country tires address everything from CUVs to off-road vehicles.

“When the CUV was in its infancy, we put it more with the car line, which is where our Versado line of touring tires is,” he said. “As (the segment) has grown and matured, we felt like it fit more in the Open Country family. So we moved it out (of Versado), we improved the product, and we expanded the Open Country line.”

Bergeson added that testing showed the Q/T line will give customers 10,000 more miles of use than the corresponding Versado CUV offerings.

The Open Country C/T—for commercial traction—offers all-terrain commercial grade durability, plus a Three-Peak Mountain Snowflake certification, which qualifies it for severe snow conditions. Toyo said it was developed for both on- and off-road work, and it has a unique tread design and tough construction so the tire delivers long tread life and traction in gravel, mud and show. But the firm claimed it also provides a quiet highway ride.

The tread compound contains high levels of natural rubber and was designed specifically for rough roads or no roads, with the compound helping to resist cutting and chipping while remaining flexible in lower temperatures, according to Toyo.

The C/T will have 16 sizes, with rim diameters from 16-20 inches. Fitments include Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-Series, Ram Series, Toyota Tundra and Nissan Titan.

Gomez said the C/T is geared toward consumers that were among the hardest hit during the recession, such as home builders and contractors who use trucks for their jobs. “With the recent uptick in the economy, we've seen the pickup truck category really rebounding,” he said. “We wanted to be able to provide a product specifically for those types of customers.”

Bergeson said the C/T's key attributes are durability and a long life span, though there is no warranty because it's designed for commercial usage. “A lot of these commercial customers will be very focused on cost per mile,” he said. “The initial cost to purchase will be extremely competitive, and this tire will provide a lower cost per mile because of its durability.”

He added that while it has the Three Peak Snowflake certification, it is not a dedicated snow tire and can be used year-round. Toyo actually debuted the tire about a year ago in Canada, where the snowflake certification is required in Quebec. “We've been doing some cooperative testing in Canada, running it in very severe conditions up there,” Bergeson said. “Together we've actually made some improvements to the tire before launching it in the U.S. It's been just phenomenal for them.”

Bromfield said it is normally the other way around, with tires launched in the U.S. first, but Toyo's Canadian team made a push to have a product in the CUV category with the snowflake certification. Both tires are being made at the company's factory in White, Ga.

As Toyo Tire U.S.A. celebrates its 50th anniversary of doing business in the U.S., the unit of Japan's Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. Ltd. is looking at these tire lines as being part of an effort to give the brand more recognition in certain regions of the U.S., said Tomo Mizutani, president and CEO of the U.S. subsidiary.

He said Toyo has a good presence in the Sunbelt area, but needs to improve in the Midwest and New England areas.

To help in the latter region, Toyo is a sponsor of the Boston Red Sox, which can be difficult for Bromfield, a lifelong Yankees fan. “It's a wonderful complement to trying to grab more brand recognition in the Northeast, where we have not been as strong as we'd like it to be,” he said.

Some of Toyo's mar-keting efforts are national in scope, includ-ing its sponsorship of the UFC. Recognition for some of its lines—including for its full off-road and ultra high performance tires—are led by enthusiasts, Bromfield said, while its all-season and commercial tires typically are driven by its channels of distribution.

Mizutani said the Q/T is targeted at a growing area, and will help the firm “have a menu to appeal to the Midwest.”

Company officials also said social media marketing efforts have helped it spread brand recognition. They pointed to a recent video featuring a 1959 British vehicle called the Ferret that it modified to run on Toyo Tires that has tallied more than 1 million views each on Facebook and YouTube.

“In a lot of ways, it's an equalizer for us,” Bromfield said. “We won't be doing national consumer advertising campaigns on TV for these two products, while some of the major manufacturers might. We're very dependent on our social media channels to get the word out.”