[aerokubectl]

Originally Posted by Thescout13

I bet they do it for costs as you note. But I'm sure what they do is a dual bid process. Continental is cheaper at 95% of performance so they use it as the second manufacturer to fill gaps or lulls in production with Michelin being the primary supplier. Given Continental sponsors the performance schools in the US, I'm sure that discount is nice for BMW.

OEMs dual source for high production units to ensure that they always have a supply coming in from manufacturers.

Continentals aren't bad and they're really not any cheaper. Continental has a huge presence in EMEA and they understand really well how to make summer/winter tires. Their all seasons used to be questionable.

Some OEs are biased towards some brands as their test drivers don't want to waste time benchmarking a metric shitton of tires. For instance, Ford wants nothing to do with Falken or Toyo(they won't even entertain a RFP from certain brands)

Korean manufacturers tend to lean towards Hankook and Kumhos(wonder why lol)

FYI, Dunlop in EMEA is Goodyear. Most Dunlop tires in the US are Dunlop Japan(SRI)

[doughboy]

Originally Posted by spetsnazos

FYI, Dunlop in EMEA is Goodyear.

That's interesting, In EU you can buy Dunlop and Goodyear as totally separate brands and tyre ranges with direct competing products.

Are they the same company?

[CSBM5]

Originally Posted by doughboy

That's interesting, In EU you can buy Dunlop and Goodyear as totally separate brands and tyre ranges with direct competing products.

Are they the same company?

In the EU and North America and a few other places, yes. It's far more involved than I thought.

[TemjinX2]

trust me, michelin wishes all these oems would just switch to ps4s so they dont have to make two different models for essentially the same tire category and performance.

Michelin stated they have to make michelin pss's long as the cars being produced by oems still come with them. You'll probably see the pss phase out for ps4s once the last oem car that comes with them goes out of production.

[aerokubectl]

Originally Posted by doughboy

That's interesting, In EU you can buy Dunlop and Goodyear as totally separate brands and tyre ranges with direct competing products.

Are they the same company?

Technically SRI(Sumitomo Rubber Industries) owns the Dunlop brand I'm certain regions. They had a JV with Goodyear and both used each other's name in various regions. For instance in Japan, Goodyear is SRI. It's dumb and confusing but most EMEA tires with the Dunlop brand are designed and built out of the Luxembourg Goodyear office. Technically SRI now owns Dunlop in the US on OE fitments.

A lot of tire brands are actually owned by parent tire companies. This is off of memory but, Michelin owns BF Goodrich, Uniroyal and Riken. Bridgestone owns Firestone. Continental owns General Tire. They use the other brands to compete at a lower price point without devaluing their brand.