The first U.S. licensee in the ContiLifeCycle dealer network, King’s Tire in Bluefield, W.V., reopened the doors of its 25,000-square-foot retread tire facility on Friday at an event attended by regional fleet customers and Continental representatives.
King’s, which has been servicing the I-77 and I-81 corridor in southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia for 40 years, will be supplied with flat, precure ContiTread products from Continental’s tread production facility in Morelia, Mexico. The retreaded ContiLifeCycle tires sold at King’s Tire will be the first produced in the U.S. from flat precure treads featuring the same pattern designs, rubber compounding and tread technology that are included in new Continental brand truck tires, the tiremaker said.
The King’s Tire chain employs 150 at eight locations and sells both commercial and passenger/light truck tires. Its retread facility in Bluefield employs 16 personnel and is capable of producing up to 60,000 ContiTread truck tires annually.
“We chose to become a ContiLifeCycle licensee so that we could offer something very important to our customers – performance,” said owner Sam King. “Continental is the first to offer a product that we feel performs the same from the new tire manufacturing all the way through the useful lifetime of the casing. This high level of technology, along with Continental’s great customer service and support, is exactly what we’ve been looking for, and we think our fleet customers will feel the same way.”
“King’s Tire is recognized by its customers as a premier provider of commercial truck tires, both new and retreads, along this important highway corridor,” said Paul Williams, Continental’s executive vice president for truck tires in the Americas. “Over 40 years they have built a fantastic reputation for both consumer and fleet tire sales and service. Today we are happy to welcome them as the first U.S. licensee in our ContiLifeCycle network.”
He added that Continental is currently in talks with additional truck tire dealers across the U.S. and eastern Canada to expand the ContiLifeCycle network, and expects to complete several additional licensing agreements before the end of 2011. Prior to King’s Tire, Continental supplied the tread products to eight ContiLifeCycle dealers throughout Mexico. In addition to the Morelia facility, two plants are also operating in the Andean region.
With our turnkey solution including these premium products, marketing support and competitive pricing, we are confident that we have an attractive package for dealers looking for a manufacturer to be their business partner in retreading – not their competitor,” Williams said.
