Since the 1st of January 2018, the manufacturer labelling of winter retreads for commercial vehicles and their trailers with the 3PMSF pictogram is mandatory. This applies when these retreads are used on public roads in Germany and certain other European countries. It means that customers of KRAIBURG Austria, the retreading specialist, need to expand their basic approval procedure in accordance with ECE-R 109. As a leading material supplier, KRAIBURG Austria not only integrated approved patterns into the product range early, but also kept its customers informed, accompanied them in the process and, above all, supplied all the necessary documents to customers in good time to enable them to continue to operate safely.
Pattern information is available from KRAIBURG
“For the extension application, all that needs to be done is to send an informal letter to the competent Technical Service that performed the basic approval in accordance with ECE-R 109,” explains Christoph Priewasser, Product Manager at KRAIBURG Austria. The Technical Service then makes a formal application to the competent approval authority on behalf of the retreading specialist. The latter obtains the test reports required for this from Prüflabor Nord. “For documenting the measures taken, we recommend our customers to file the pattern information with their own QM documentation, so that it is already available when the customer receives the approval notice from the Technical Service. The design information can, of course, be requested from ourselves at any time,” added Christoph Priewasser.
Retreads eligible for the de minimis scheme
In this context, the Product Manager explicitly pointed out that the use of retreads in Germany is funded as part of the de minimis scheme. The support covers 80 percent of the eligible expenditure, which varies between 50 percent and 100 percent of the purchase, rental or lease price of the tyre, according to the axle position. Which KRAIBURG tyre treads are currently 3PMSF certified and other information about the de minimis support program and KRAIBURG Austria are available at www.kraiburg-austria.com.
