Weight matters: CEAT gloves up for heavyweight division with ‘LYFMAX’

Launches premium 115-lb, 10.00 20 size, bias-ply contender for truck and prime mover operators looking for heavy load-carrying tyres

CEAT Kelani Holdings has achieved another production milestone with the launch of a new locally-manufactured heavy-duty tyre for trucks, engineered and built specifically for users who consider heavy load-carrying capability with higher mileage a priority.

Weighing a solid 52 kg (115 pounds) each, these bias-ply type tyres fit size 10.00 20 which represents 48% of the buses and trucks on Sri Lanka’s roads.

Branded ‘CEAT LYFMAX’ in acknowledgement of its extended durability, this new premium bias tyre has been extensively tested and benchmarked against two of the top brands attributed with load-carrying credentials in the local market and outperforms both, the company said.

“The CEAT brand already has a dominant 63% share of the Sri Lanka market for truck/bus bias-ply tyres, but we are not resting on our laurels,” CEAT Kelani Managing Director Ravi Dadlani said. “We have identified a segment of lorry and prime mover customers that opts for imported bias-ply brands due to the perception of their load-carrying capabilities, and the LYFMAX tyre is our response to that challenge.”

Designed at CEAT’s state-of-the-art design facility in Halol, India, the CEAT LYFMAX has an extra-robust tread pattern with optimised tread geometry, enhanced ribs and groove width and a Non-skid Depth (NSD) of 19.8 mm to deliver higher mileage and better durability. 

The tyre’s refined footprint provides a higher contact area for uniform pressure distribution, enabling better load handling. Its new buttress design allows better temperature control at high speeds, which in combination with the advanced high performance compounds used for greater casing strength help maintain casing longevity and translates to better re-treadability, an important consideration in the commercial tyre segment.

About 55% of truck and bus operators in Sri Lanka use bias-ply tyres, although there is a shift towards truck/bus radials (TBRs) by fleet owners seeking the running cost and performance benefits of radial tyres. CEAT Kelani Holdings is actively contributing to this segment as well and in mid-2019 launched the CEAT Winmile AW – the first locally-produced high-performance TBR, enabling significant import substitution on TBRs coming in from India as well as China.

CEAT Kelani Holdings, which manufactures nearly half of Sri Lanka’s pneumatic tyre requirements, is considered one of the most successful India-Sri Lanka joint ventures in the manufacturing sector. The joint venture’s cumulative investment in Sri Lanka to date totals Rs. 8 billion, inclusive of Rs. 3 billion committed in January 2018 for expansion of volumes, technology upgrades and new product development.

The company’s manufacturing operations in Sri Lanka encompass pneumatic tyres in the radial (passenger cars, vans and SUVs), commercial (Bias-ply and radial), motorcycle, three-wheeler and agricultural vehicle segments. 

The CEAT brand accounts for market shares of 33% in the radial segment, 65% in the Truck category, 80% Light Truck tyre category, 50% in the Three-Wheeler tyre segment, 31% in the motorcycle tyre segment and 72% in the agricultural vehicle tyre category. CEAT exports about a third of its production to 16 countries in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Far East.