To Move More Tires, Try Selling the Salesman

摘要

It's just past 9 a.m. on a soon-to-be-scorching June Thursday on the southern edge of Texas hill country, and Chris Kunz is making a Ford Mustang squeal. Kunz, a 28-year-old assistant store manager for Discount Tire in Houston, is comparing a set of General Tire G-Max tires with four Goodyear Eagle GTs. It's looking bad for the Goodyears, which is exactly what Continental, the company that owns the General brand, hoped. "God, these Goodyears are horrible," says Kunz, who says they gave a rougher and noisier ride when he hit 60 mph on the twisty, 1.1-mile asphalt course. (Goodyear spokesman Jim Davis says, "The Eagle GT is an excellent product.")