Goodyear to buy Cooper
- Thread starter Joe1
- Start date
Bad news for consumers, bad news for competition, and bad news for Cooper employees. You have to wonder if they were better off being sold off to Apollo since they would be valued for their R&D and it would have been a foothold in the American market for Apollo. With Goodyear both companies are based in the same town, Goodyear is ahead in R&D so this will only logically end with a lot of Cooper's US staff being shown the door. This reminds me of when Seagate bought out Maxxtor only to fire most of their US staff and keep some of the useful IP and Chinese operations, essentially spending $1.9 billion to buy market share and wipe out the second last remaining US based competitor. Some might say this is a natural feature of American business and that Akron's top position in the global tire industry was untenable, perhaps they're right but there are examples of a cluster of competing companies based in the same small city that prosper by staying independent and sacrificing rapid growth for long term sustainability. Remsheid and Wuppertal are next door neighbor city's with a combined population of less than half a million that have a long tool making industry that hosts many successful independent German tool companies to this day like Stahlwille, Gedore, Hazet, Wera, Knipex, Heyco, etc.
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they'll be based in the same city now, but Cooper's Headquarters has been in Findlay, same as Marathon, about 45 min NE from me.
Akron is a good 3 hrs away on the other side of the state...
Goodyear USED to be able to make decent tires, the Tripletreds on the MGM in my sig are an AWESOME all weather tire, but they seem to make quite a bit of cheaply made, overpriced junk! Maybe Cooper can show them how to make a decent private label tire, hopefully?
Probably not as even combined, they wont be close to a controlling share of the US tire market as a whole. There are enough other big players out there.
I never had a good Goodyear, but I only had them as OEM's, which are probably not the best way to judge tires. I liked my Cooper AT's on a Jeep and really liked their Avon Tech M500's as a mid price, consumable tire for HPDE's. Were they the best tires on the circuit? No, but they were better than me. Never understood why Cooper ended the decent Avon line in the US after a short few years.
ls1mike
$50 Site Donor 2024
I have had a ton a Goodyear tires. Eagle F1s, GS-Cs, RS-As and others I am forgetting. Never really had a set that I liked. I never really thought they were that great.
I currently have Cooper RS3-As on the Trans Am and Cooper AT3 XLTs on the 1 ton. They are the best tires I have had hands down.
I hope that Cooper tire quality does not suffer from this.
I currently have Cooper RS3-As on the Trans Am and Cooper AT3 XLTs on the 1 ton. They are the best tires I have had hands down.
I hope that Cooper tire quality does not suffer from this.
Not a big GY fan, but always had good luck with the 80's model of the Eagle ST. yeah, long time ago nd tech has changed, but for the time, they were good tires.
I got the same tires in August on my F-150, 275/65R18’s. I like them so far. Do well in the snow and are smooth on pavement. Really hope Goodyear doesn’t move them out of our beloved country.
You and me both. I hope the deal doesn't go through.
Hoever if it does, I'm considering gettng new tires early, before things start changing.
Still better than Uniroyal sounds like your driving a lumber wagon over a washboard
manicrodder
$50 site donor 2022
Me too.
I don't even like expensive Michelins! Much less cheap Michelins.
and Uniroyal was even worse before Michelin bought them
I have a set of Uniroyal Tiger Paw II tires on my pickup truck. Funny thing, they are some of the best tires I have ever had on any of my vehicles. Great traction and cornering along with little highway noise. Do decently in the snow as well, for the class of tire that is.
I’ve had one set of GY tires which I considered to be excellent. The rest were just ok at best, and often I just didn’t like them, though they never had balance issues. They stopped making my favorite. So, my personal opinion of GY is not great, outside of two AT offerings like the duratrak and the new duratrak lite.
ive had 2 sets of coopers and the overall experience was better.
not thrilled about the buyout.
ive had 2 sets of coopers and the overall experience was better.
not thrilled about the buyout.
If you are going to be buying Chinese tires anyway why not just go with Milestar or Linglong? Sure old Gramps will still buy Cooper for old times sake. Now it’s just an old name like Packard and Studebaker, or a shell with just another layer of corporate middleman.
