OEM -- original equipment manufacturer

Vehicle manufacturers understand that there is little reason to spend millions of dollars developing the ride and handling qualities of a new vehicle's suspension if they are going to omit integrating the influence of its Original Equipment tires. This has resulted in either completely new tire designs or fine-tuned versions of existing designs being engineered for every new car and light truck from the beginning of the vehicle's development process.

There was a time in America when it was thought that the only reasons a vehicle manufacturer chose Original Equipment tires were "how wide were the whitewalls" and "which manufacturer would sell their bias ply tires for the lowest price." Well even if that had been true, times have changed and neither whitewalls nor cheap bias ply tires are used on vehicles today.

Part of the reason for this is because tire comfort and tire performance directly correlate with the driver's overall vehicle satisfaction. Original Equipment tires play an integral role in achieving the vehicle's desired comfort and performance capabilities, and greatly influence the vehicle's personality. And as vehicles have evolved, so have OE tires. For the most part, today's vehicles are lighter, more fuel-efficient and more responsive than those built a decade ago. This has caused corresponding reductions in tire weight and rolling resistance, while enhancing the tire's handling capabilities.

A tire's characteristics can be represented graphically in a "spider" chart (see below). These charts provide a visual means of presenting multiple performance characteristics to allow direct comparison of an existing tire's capabilities (usually established at the 100 level as a baseline) to the targets and/or realized performance levels for a new tire.

While the tire manufacturer's ultimate goal is to develop technology that allows them to expand the new tire's entire comfort and performance envelope in all directions compared to the original tire, frequently they are only able to expand the tire's capabilities in several areas without causing compromises that would result in less performance in other areas. This type of analysis allows confirmation of the accomplished improvements and any resulting compromises.

Starting from the same original tire would result in identifying different goals for a tire intended for a luxury coupe vs. a tire intended for a true sports car. Which is the better tire? In reality, neither of them is better; but they are both different. Most importantly, both would be tuned to meet the desired personality of the car. However, if misapplied, the driver would experience a loss of performance if the luxury coupe tire was installed on the sports car, or a loss of comfort if the sports car tire were installed on the luxury coupe.

Maintaining high customer satisfaction is key to vehicle and tire manufacturers alike. Vehicle manufacturers benefit from higher vehicle satisfaction ratings, and tire manufacturers that have high levels of driver satisfaction also have the highest percentage of drivers who report that they intend to buy that same tire brand in the future. Among year-one owners, more than 60 percent of the drivers on OE Michelin report that they plan to repurchase Michelin tires in the future, the highest repurchase intention of all tire brands.

Additionally, the vehicle manufacturers have learned that if the driver is satisfied with their tires they are also likely to be satisfied with their vehicle, increasing their intent to repurchase the same brand of vehicle in the future.