Two more manufacturers have idled production of new tires amid the nationwide economic slowdown brought on by the coronavirus.

Bob Herr can’t do it alone. Neither can the 85 drivers and the 90-vehicle fleet he manages at food service distributor Feesers Inc. For Herr and other fleet managers, intelligent tires are helping to prevent those costly and time-consuming tire failures.

Snider Fleet Solutions announced it made a “significant ownership investment” in WheelRight Ltd., a U.K.-based technology company focused on tire diagnostics and maintenance.

Hankook Tire, whose commercial products are on U.S. fleets, announced the predictive model it is developing using artificial intelligence could slash in half the time it takes to develop tire compounds.

German tire manufacturer Continental AG celebrated the grand opening of its first plant dedicated to truck tires, the company said in an Oct. 16 news release.

Blown-out, flat or damaged tires are considered by fleets to be at least a leading cause of roadside maintenance calls for commercial trucks, while underinflated tires are the single-biggest source of tire issues in general.

Improvements to truck tire technology in recent years have created a collection of products that man­ufacturers often tout as their most ­advanced, longest-wearing and most fuel-efficient tires ever. But many motor carriers choose to analyze those factory-­tested claims in their own real-life settings before committing to adding the products to their entire fleet.

GRAPEVINE, Texas — Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. said its recently introduced steer tire addresses concerns fleets expressed with an earlier model designed for the same application.

American Tire Distributors Inc., buffeted by the defection of two big manufacturers, is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware after reaching a deal with most of its bondholders to reduce its debt by about $1.1 billion.