Ford Tire Replacement Won’t Stop Price Hike

Ford Motor Co.’s program to replace 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires is a boost to the tire industry but not enough to prevent an expected price hike of up to 5%.

Consumers will begin seeing price increases “over the next several weeks,” according to the monthly tire review published by J.P. Morgan Securities.

Keith Price, a spokesman for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., said the about 7 million tires it will provide for the Ford program is relatively inconsequential.

Goodyear produces 233 million tires annually worldwide, he said.

The same is true for Continental, a German company supplying about 2.5 million replacement tires, a spokesman said.

Among the challenges facing tire companies is a 16.4% drop in shipments of original equipment tires installed on new vehicles. The decrease is because of a slowdown in auto sales compared with 2000, which was a record sales year for the industry.