MOJO Tyres Information. Barcodes and Batches.

Reifenwerk Heidenau GmbH & Co, the company behind the MOJO tyres for the Rotax Max Challenge has released the below clarification on the barcodes placed on MOJO tyres as well as some interesting information on the production process.

The main point covered is that the barcodes are now randomized (and have been since 2012) – they do not directly siginify the production order of the tyres.

1. MOJO barcodes:

 Since Jan. 2010 all MOJO tyres are manufactured with barcodes.

The MOJO barcodes have numbers with eight digits and always start with an 8xxxxxxx.

The 8 is allocated by CIK and identifies the manufacturer (i.e. 3….. Vega, 5….. Bridgestone, 9… Dunlop etc.)

A tyre manufacturer is obliged to mark tyres for safety reasons. This is part of the ISO certification for a European manufacturer.

A barcode has several advantages over the typical production code on tyres used by other manufacturers:

1.  The barcode is part of our quality control system (when, where, by whom each tyre  was manufactured)
2. The barcode is one of our tools to protect our distributors from grey imports
3. The barcode helps race organisers to administrate the tyres during a race.
4. It helps distributors to always know the shipping dates of all MOJO tyres, to “make first in, first out” as accurate as possible.

Until the end of 2011 the barcodes applied to the tyres during production were in sequential order. This led to complaints from drivers, assuming that tyres with certain numbers were faster/slower than others (i.e. 813xxxxx compared to 812xxxxx). The last production with barcodes in the sequential order was 815xxxxx.

From 1.1.2012 onwards the barcodes were  already delivered by our supplier in random order. This way it is impossible to say that tyres with certain numbers are faster, slower and/or older than others.

Now some drivers still think that a tyre barcode starting with 816…. is an old tyre, which is absolutely not the case. 81600000- 8999999 is simply the range of our random order barcode labels.

2. Bad batches of tyres:

 When we talk to people at races, sometimes  they complain that tyres from a certain “batch” are slower/faster than tyres from another “batch”. When asked what they mean when they say batch the answer always is: “From the same production!”

A batch in a manufacturer’s language means the amount of compound produced in one lot. In our case it is around 350kg, as this is the maximum capacity of  the compound mixer at our supplier. Considering that you need approx. 1kg compound per tyre it means 350 tyres per batch.

Compared to other kart tyre manufacturers who only produce certain tyres twice a year, Heidenau is produces all MOJO tyres throughout the whole year.

Heidenau is also the only manufacturer that stores all MOJO tyres for 1 month for curing in its warehouse before shipping.

Those facts beside many others in our production guarantee an absolute constant quality in our tyres, which has been proven over the last years.

We also permanently remind our distributors to strictly follow the first in-first out principle.

The random order is also mentioned on the official mojo tyres website: http://www.mojo-tyres.com/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-36/50_read-59/