Case study: E.On

E.On could reduce its commercial vehicle tyre budget by 15% by switching from premium to mid-range tyres.

After tyre labelling was introduced, Lorna McAtear, fleet commercial vehicle manager at E.On, asked her maintenance supplier to provide a list of the premium tyres put on the fleet over the past year to compare their label ratings to those of mid-range tyres.

“I was really surprised to notice that a lot of the mid-range tyres that had previously been out of scope for us were the same, or better, on their tyre labelling than the premium tyres we had been using,” she says.

“Although premium tyre manufacturers say they factor far more things in when constructing the tyre, such as aquaplaning, and the mid-range tyres tend to only concentrate on the label areas, it’s still a significant enough difference to make it worthwhile doing a trial.”

McAtear has instructed her maintenance provider to fit any brand of tyre to E.On’s commercial vehicles provided it has at least a ‘C’ rating for wet grip and ‘E’ for fuel efficiency.

“It will be a challenge because when drivers get their first set of tyres they might be saying ‘that’s not premium, I’m not having that’,” McAtear says.

It will take time to determine whether E.On should make a permanent change to its tyre policy.

“We don’t go through tyres quickly enough to get a lot of data,” she says.

“I need to analyse whether changing tyres has an adverse effect on our accident rate and whether we have to change tyres more frequently.”