Sticky Debate

Every year around this time, tire dealers across the country look to the sky prayerfully. The sooner heavy snow falls, the more snow tires they can expect to sell. To their dismay, recent winters have been unusually mild; on top of that, seven states have banned the metal-studded tires that accounted for 40% of all snow tires sold in the early 1970s. More states may well enact similar laws on the ground that the metal studs tear up highway surfaces. As a result, snow-tire sales have melted steadily, from 19.1 million tires in 1972 to 17.5 million in 1974; this year's sales may drop below 15 million.

In an effort to pull the snow-tire market out of its skid, all four major tire manufacturers (Goodyear, B.F. Goodrich, Uniroyal and Firestone) are now promoting new nonstudded winter radial tires. They are made of soft, "sticky" chemical compounds that remain pliable at low temperatures and, according to manufacturers, provide superior traction on ice-and snow-covered roads. In general, they cost slightly more (between $60 and $100 each) than hard-compound radials, but they may not last as long.

Just as they see some hope of reversing the sales drop, however, the tire makers have been dealt a heavy blow by none other than their biggest customer, General Motors, which last year bought 15 million tires as original equipment. GM now is giving many drivers of its cars the idea that they do not need snow tires at all. GM claims that the TPC-Spec steel-belted radial tires that are now attached to all newly built GM cars "are designed for year-round traction performance." Tests conducted by GM indicate that on loose or soft-packed snow, the radials provide 73% to 96% as much driving traction as snow tires; on hard-packed snow they perform just as well. Indeed, in Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma and New York City, the GM TPC-Spec radial qualifies as a snow tire. Recently the National Safety Council, after some prodding by GM, announced that tire performance in snow is determined by tread configuration; since the center-tread portion of GM's tire resembles that of a snow tire, its performance presumably would be similar too.

The Message. Tire makers thus face an unenviable marketing dilemma: they dare not offend GM by quarreling openly with its claims, yet they know that those claims are likely to cost them sales. So far their solution has been to plug their new "sticky" tires heavily on TV and seek in other ways to get across the message that motorists still need snow tires to get around in the heaviest snows and on ice. Goodyear, for example, is passing around to editors a release, written like a news story that gingerly notes "there is no mention of ice traction in the GM declaration." Also, the release politely points out that--according to a survey by the Tire Industry Safety Council--mail carriers and highway patrols in many states are still equipping their vehicles with winter tires, no matter what they use before and after the winter.

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