VIPAL’S KNOWING YOUR RETREADS
STEP CHANGE IN
RETREAD TECH Vipal Rubber recently developed an innovation that facilitates the identification of a tyre’s wear, winning the brand a gong at the Recircle Awards.
T
he Vipal Rubber VT560 tread with Eye Control technology is collecting industry awards and winning over the New Zealand transport industry. Quality and innovation are factors that have always guided Vipal Rubber’s activities and the development of its products and services during the past 48 years. With these innovations, the company became a leader in Latin America and one of the world’s main manufacturers of products for retreading and repairing tyres. The exclusive Eye Control technology developed by Vipal to control tread wear was awarded the Best Retreading Industry Innovation award at the first Recircle Awards 2020, held in March this year to recognise companies and professionals in the tyre manufacturing, retreading and recycling industries. One of the recently released models with this specification was the VT560, widely used in New Zealand.
134 New Zealand Trucking
Eye Control technology is a low-relief marking on the tread that is shaped like an eye. As the tread wears out, the ‘eye’ reveals some information. In this way, it is possible to easily and quickly evaluate the wear process, identify anomalies in the tyres, determine when to rotate the wheels, and understand the right moment to send the tyre for retreading – preserving the casing and increasing its useful life. Eye Control makes it more possible than ever to increase control over the conservation of tyres and, consequently, reduce operating costs for transport operators.
Eye Control is simple but brilliant.
November 2021
Thanks to this innovation, VT560 is one of Vipal’s traction treads suitable for mixed use between paved and unpaved roads, which makes it fitting for New Zealand fleet requirements. It features good grip on different road surfaces and an optimised rubber compound to ensure optimum resistance to abrasive wear. Its design features make it an ideal tread for highly severe applications, offering great traction and preventing damage to the tyre, extending its service life for longer. The most used sizes of the VT560 are 220, 230, 240 and 250mm widths for 11R 22.5,
295/80 R22.5 and 275/70 R22.5 tyres. According to Vipal Rubber’s commercial coordinator, Dijan Rigo, more than 2000 tyres have already been retreaded with VT560 in New Zealand. “With its non-directional design, this tread recently launched by the Vipal brand has been widely used by our partners, such as Power Retreads, for example, which applies it in tyre retreading for several of its clients. “It is a tread that meets the needs of the New Zealand market in a very satisfactory way, with the versatility and durability that carriers need.”
