Richards Tire was founded in 1977 in Petoskey, Mich. For years brothers Rich and Frank Kozlowski worked side by side providing tires and service in northern Michigan. Today, Rich has retired and Frank runs the tire dealership.
Operating from its existing location for many years, the shop has gone through gradual renovations – new paint and adding on to the counter. Due to the amount of time and work that goes into construction, however, no major redesigns have occurred at the shop, Frank Kozlowski shares.
“I’d love to do a remodel,” Kozlowski says, acknowledging that a redesign could give the shop a fresh look.
Using Richards Tire’s existing building dimensions, Hunter sales rep Matt Sheafor provided Kozlowski with an example of how a redesign could look at his shop.
1 – Currently, Richards Tire only has one window looking into its service area. Kozlowski says adding additional windows and seating is a good idea because the dealership gets a lot of children who like to watch the technicians working in the bays. The seating also gives customers an additional place to wait while their vehicles are serviced.
2 – Kozlowski would love to break up its long service counter (upper left corner), to smaller service podiums. He says this would cut out the barrier that exists between the customer and service writer.
3 – A Hunter alignment system was one of the first pieces of equipment the tire dealership purchased, says Kozlowski. Without the alignment machine, the dealership wouldn’t get half of the service jobs the location does, he shares.
4 – A second customer waiting area allows for more seating and also features more windows into the service bay area.
5 – Another piece of equipment Sheafor added was Hunter’s Quick Check drive over tread depth system. The system measures the tread depth of each tire and can be paired with other Hunter equipment for a full Quick Check system. Like the Quick Check system, Quick Tread results can be presented on a printout or displayed on a monitor for customer viewing. Additional Hunter tire changing equipment was also added to the service area near the back of the room.
To see more designs, click here.
