Originally Posted By: GC4lunch
Originally Posted By: NHHEMI
I was ready to give them a shot despite Dunlop being a Goodyear owned tire company and I am NOT a fan of GY.
I guess a Dunlop by any other name is a Goodyear.
Do you know something that Goodyear is not revealing?
My recollection, which may be distorted by the lens of passing time is that, when just about all Japanese companies were awash in cash, Sumitomo bought Dunlop. Then came what the Japanese call "the bubble" as the Japanese economy sank into a decade or more of malaise. Sumitomo went from having more cash than it knew how to spend to being cash short and Goodyear bought into Dunlop big time; but I (for one) have never seen any details of the arrangement, whether Sumitomo remains the majority owner of Dunlop, or now is a minority shareholder, or whether the arrangement is 50-50. Do you have details?
It does appear that the European tires that used to be sold as Fulda are more and more marketed as Dunlop, while the profile of Sumitomo branded tires in Asia is declining at about the same rate as the profile of Dunlop branded tires is on the ascent in the same markets. What that means for the Dunlop brand as to tires sold in North America I can only guess, though.
To Rand's original post, I will say that we have had all sorts of top-end tires on our vehicles, including some exotics, and the latest set of tires, now on the car, may well be the best tires we ever have had from the driver's standpoint. They happen to be Dunlop branded tires, SP Sport Maxx TT. Excellent braking modulation and performance in all conditions, and excellent handling on the wet roads that we see often here in the Pacific Northwest. We are very strongly biased that the most important function of any tire is to stop the vehicle when called upon to do so, and the SP Sport Maxx TT tires perform that function very well indeed.
From Wikipedia( if you trust them )...
Dunlop Tires is owned by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company which sells Dunlop brand tires in North America, Australia and Europe. In other regions of the world, the Dunlop brand is owned by other companies. In India the brand is owned by Dunlop India Ltd. whose parent company is the Ruia Group, in the rest of Asia by Sumitomo and in South Africa by Apollo Tyres Ltd. of India.
Or, from Dunlop's web site...
2000 Our 1999 integration into the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company is complete, creating the ideal combination of racing heritage and worldwide technological resources.
Full owner or part owners doesn't matter to me if GY is involved.
