A Weighty Vocation: Exploring Often-Overlooked Fire Truck Tire Business Can Ignite Profits
If you’re a commercial tire dealer, you may be overlooking a relatively simple and lucrative business opportunity. Chances are good you drive right past a potential new source of sales every day and never even give a second look. That potential customer is right in your local fire station. Why is the opportunity to sell
Back to Basics: Part 4: How Tread Design Impacts Wear, Traction and Noise
In the last issue, we talked about tire compounds with the promise that we would delve into the world of tread designs this time. Always fascinating is the size of the contact patch through which the tread design must roll. On an average-size passenger car tire, the contact patch is about the size of a
Stop and Listen: Your Commercial Customers’ Tires Are Dying to Tell You Something
One of the questions good fleet managers ask and research periodically is: “How can I improve my tire program?” The well-traveled statistic that tires are typically the second-highest non-labor operating expense for on-highway fleets prioritizes tire management for fleets. That fact, especially for mixed-service (on/off road) fleets, puts extra emphasis on tires. The usual, top-ranking
Muscle Mass: Pitch Lightweight Wheels to Customers Wanting to Save Horsepower
Horsepower. You hear the word all the time. We apply it to nearly everything from automobiles to vacuum cleaners. Ever wonder where it came from? The term “horsepower” was coined by an engineer named James Watt. He lived from 1736 to 1819 and is most famous for his work on improving the performance of steam
Maxed Out?: Size Race Slows, But Fashion vs. Function Questions Remain for Dealers
For a few years, the tire and wheel industries resembled the Cold War nuclear arms race – every year, someone rolled out a bigger weapon. It started with eye-popping, wheel-well-stretching 20-inch wheels and tires and progressed to the 2004 SEMA Show, where gigantic 28-inchers were every where. A sort of dÉtente has settled in, if
Badge of Honor: Tire/Wheel Certification Offers Customer-Capturing Credibility
What is your impression of someone who has a professional certification? Admiration? Perhaps respect for the achievement or recognition? When you’re being treated for a common cold, do you go to a first-year med student because it isn’t a life threatening illness? Of course not! You see a licensed professional, such as a doctor or
Brilliant Disguise: All That Glitters is Not Gold, Especially When it Comes to Tire Supply
Reviewing the state of the medium truck tire market in the spring of 2005 is enough to make a fortune teller reach for the Pepto. There is a record demand for tires, what appears to be a tightening supply of those tires (depending on who you ask), a continuing strong demand for Class 8 power
Second Skin: For Retreaders, Technology and Service are the ‘Differentiators’ in Tough Market
Wherever the market for new truck tires decides it is headed, the retreading industry is hot on its heels. Of course, that job is a bit easier for Bridgestone/Firestone, Goodyear and Michelin, because they are involved in both. But even their allocation of time and money must be measured carefully. For companies like Bandag Inc.
Staggering Difference: Truck Fleets and Racing are Vastly Different, Strangely Similar
Many fleet operators still maintain that truck tires represent the second (to fuel) largest operating expense in their budget. This “truism” seems pretty amazing, considering the tremendous advances made in radial tire technology that have led to longer treadlife (original and retread), improved casing durability and much better resistance to injury. And it is surprising,
Back to Basics: Part 3: Compounding Can Be Dumbfounding
In the last issue of Tire Review, we talked about belt packages and left you with the promise that next time we would dig deep into the subject of rubber compounding – particularly multi-compounding. To help understand the complexities of compounding (and there are many) grab a stick of chewing gum and pull it slowly.
Knowledge is Power: Learning About Cutting-Edge Wheel Production Can Boost Sales
As the automotive industry incorporates more and more technology into every part of a vehicle, have you thought about how this technology is being used in the wheel industry? Let’s face it: You can have the most advanced drivetrain, telematics and fuel system known to man, but without a tire and wheel, it’s just a
Action and Reaction: Can Private Brands Survive a Shakeout?
When evaluating the private brand tires you carry, ask yourself one critical question: Can they survive a shakeout? “We are a pull through,” says Pat McLaughlin, president of SURE Tire, a cooperative buying group for private brand tires, about his business. “We can’t push anything into the market. We have to trail.” Reactionary. That’s the