Bringing back the BF Goodrich Radial TA in a 195/60/14

[Lenny]

I finally got my response I was feeling left out.
10/16/2015
Hello Leonard,
Thank you for your email. We welcome the opportunity to serve you.

In regards to the email you sent stating:
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I have a 1981 DeLorean. It is difficult to find matching tires. We, the owners, cannot find 195/60/14 and 235/60HR-15 matching tires. A couple of things you may not know.
1. There are a series of DeLorean Dealers across the county. The headquarters is 15023 Eddie Drive
Humble, Texas 77396
800.872.3621
281.441.2537
2. Next Wednesday 10/21/2015 is Back to the Future day, the day that Doc and Marty came to in Back to the Future II.

If you wanted some good free press you could announce that BF Goodrich was manufacturing tires just in time for Doc and Marty to get back home.

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We appreciate your request for tire size P195/60R14. Unfortunately, Leonard, we do not manufacture this tire. Your request will be forwarded to the appropriate Marketing Group for future consideration.

We appreciate your business and thank you for choosing BFGoodrich.

It is our goal to ensure that your issue has been resolved or your question answered to your satisfaction. If we can assist you further, please respond to this email or call us at 1-877-788-8899 (toll free) between 8:00AM and 8:00PM Eastern Time Monday through Friday or between 8:30AM and 4:30PM Eastern Time on Saturday.

Sincerely,

Sue
Consumer Care Department
Certified BFGoodrich Product Expert

[Domi]

I am prepared to run the same drills with Michelin.

Someone on the French forum knows a person who work at Michelin France, and for now no luck to see someday a brand new tire matching our size
Nevertheless, maybe the USA branch could be interested, who knows???

[ssdelorean]

If I was going to pick a good tire to bring back in the original sizes, I'd ask for the Michelin Pilot Sports that were available up to about 9 years ago.

Ditto. Great tire.

I'm currently running Michelin Pilot Exalto 195-60-14 front 225-60-15 rear.
We could just campaign Michelin to make the 235-60-15 size instead of bringing a discontinued tire back to life. Might be easier to persuade?

[sdg3205]

Ditto. Great tire.

I'm currently running Michelin Pilot Exalto 195-60-14 front 225-60-15 rear.
We could just campaign Michelin to make the 235-60-15 size instead of bringing a discontinued tire back to life. Might be easier to persuade?

Neither tire is discontinued. Both are discontinued only in our size

[mluder]

Based on the response that Lenny got It's pretty obvious by the way the responses have been worded that we're getting "answer card" responses. In other words, some min. wage worker that works in their call center is receiving the emails, types a few key words from the e-mail into a database and it spits out a canned answer which they cut and paste into the response. Lenny mentioned press surrounding the BTTF anniversary and got a reference to their marketing department in the response... If I recall his was the only one so far that mentioned their marketing department.

It's unlikely we'll get satisfaction this way. It's going to take someone like Josh, James, Stephen, etc. to open a dialogue with a sales rep from Goodrich to get any real discussion going.

Cheers
Steven

[DMCVegas]

You know what? I'd just settle for some 5-lug hubs so that I could get some decent aftermarket wheels to fit some lower profile tires to get the same matching circumferences. That or tweels.

I guess this is why Doc Brown had his DeLorean converted to hover everywhere in 2015 instead of drive...

...he couldn't find any damned tires in the future.

Welcome to 2015 everybody!

[NJP548]

Based on the response that Lenny got It's pretty obvious by the way the responses have been worded that we're getting "answer card" responses. In other words, some min. wage worker that works in their call center is receiving the emails, types a few key words from the e-mail into a database and it spits out a canned answer which they cut and paste into the response. Lenny mentioned press surrounding the BTTF anniversary and got a reference to their marketing department in the response... If I recall his was the only one so far that mentioned their marketing department.

It's unlikely we'll get satisfaction this way. It's going to take someone like Josh, James, Stephen, etc. to open a dialogue with a sales rep from Goodrich to get any real discussion going.

Cheers
Steven

Steven,

I also was given a response back referencing their marketing department and my email to them had nothing to do with BTTF. When they say marketing, its not for advertisements or something of that nature. They have a team of people that determines the market of their tires and builds them to that market.

It's not their ad agency department or anything like that.

For reference, below is the email I received from BF Goodrich this morning:


Hello Nick,

Thank you for your email. We welcome the opportunity to serve you.

In regards to the email you sent stating:
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Just curious what the minimum commitment of tires you would need to bring back the 195/60/14 radial TA? The DeLorean community is very strong and there is a desire to have a matching set of all four tires. If the minimum is around 1000 tires (500 cars) that may be feasible. Please let me know.
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We appreciate your interest in the Radial T/A line of BFGoodrich tires, Nick. We do not have a specific minimum commitment of tires that would need to be reached before consideration of bringing a tire back into the market.

However, your request to see the Radial T/A in a size 196/60R14 be brought back into production will be forwarded to the appropriate marketing groups for future consideration.

We appreciate your business and thank you for choosing BFGoodrich.

It is our goal to ensure that your issue has been resolved or your question answered to your satisfaction. If we can assist you further, please respond to this email or call us at 1-877-788-8899 (toll free) between 8:00AM and 8:00PM Eastern Time Monday through Friday or between 8:30AM and 4:30PM Eastern Time on Saturday.

Sincerely,
Nicholas
Consumer Care Department
Certified BFGoodrich Product Expert



Thanks.

-Nick Pitello

[mluder]

I stand corrected...

Cheers
Steve

[micmak]

I think we might be having a bit of an impact. Whether or not it will convince them to make our tires remains to be seen, but I think this reply was better than a negative response:


Thank you for contacting BFGoodrich. We apologize for the inconvenience. Due to extremely high email volumes, you may receive a delay in response time of up to 2-5 business days. If your issue is more pressing, please call us at 1-888-871-6666 and we will be glad to assist you.



The e-mail also had this in the subject line: Case number:6895255

Why would they have a case number if they were just going to say "NO" to me?


....Mike.....

[DMCVegas]

Well then. Let's start reaching out to everyone. We know we have Cooper, Yokohama, and Bridgestone as the last companies that made our tire sizes. And we do have Coker. What about just putting together a list of contact information, and email blasting several different tire manufacturers?