8 minute read
Making it happen
from Modern Tire Dealer - August 2015
by EndeavorBusinessMedia-VehicleRepairGroup
Dealers must diferentiate their service and help feets overcome their biggest obstacle – how to save money
By Joy Kopcha
Fleets place heavy demands on the tire dealers who serve them. Every move, every conversation, comes down to the same question: Can you save them money?
“When you look at truck tires, they’re a commodity-based business,” says Scot McKenzie, vice president of the commercial division for Indy Tire Centers Inc. “Tere are a lot of dealers with the same brand. What separates you from your competition is your level of service. All the dealers have the same kinds of services, so it’s your level of service that diferentiates you.”
Te Indianapolis-based dealer provides varying levels of service for feets. Some subscribe to the business’ mounted wheel program. Indy Tire Centers provides mounted tires and the feet replaces and installs them as necessary. Other feets rely on Indy Tire Centers to “take care of everything.”
Te feet manager establishes a tread depth pull point. When the tire dealer’s service technicians perform maintenance checks and fnd a tire at or below that already-established tread depth, the tire is replaced. No correspondence with the feet is required. Still other feets want to do the tire work themselves, but rely on their dealer for information about the technological advances in tires.
Tires are a feet’s second largest expense, behind fuel. “It’s important we stay on top of our game,” McKenzie says.
Much of what fleets want — and need — depends on how big they are. “Small feets tend to do stuf more in house because they might have mechanics that have more time.”
From McKenzie’s standpoint, small feets are those with 15 to 20 units, or less. A large feet includes at least 100 vehicles.
Fleets bigger than that are the exception, he says, though one of Indy Tire Centers’ biggest feets, Ryder System Inc., has been a customer for almost 20 years.
Generally, smaller feets need the most help identifying things to reduce their cost per mile, McKenzie
ALSO IN CTD says, “whether that’s What do feets want from you? technology in the tires MTD’s sister publication Heavy Duty or introducing retreadTrucking tackles the topic ... 52 ing or a diferent tread in retreading. Nearly 60 retread products qualify “Make sure they have for the Environmental Protection full manufacturer’s supAgency’s SmartWay program . . . 54 port. If there are wear issues, work with them to see where they’re Commercially viable . . . 56
Commercial Tire provides feet service to customers from its stores in four states, including a Boise, Idaho, store managed by Scott Schlager, pictured. More feet customers are asking for detailed tire tracking information.
Indy Tire Centers offers a mounted wheel program for some feets, and delivers the assemblies to those customers. The feet’s only responsibility is to wheel switch the assemblies on and off as the tread depth requires.
Fleet operators are focusing on fuel economy, and George Hammon says that means tire performance as well as truck performance.
coming from. Looking at scrap tires and doing analysis, why they’re coming out premature and is there something we can do from a training standpoint? Can we do something with the drivers? “We have a computer program we run them through that will show them the top seven reasons for coming out of service early. It might be driver error. Maybe the repair or age exceeds feet
Scott McKenzie says feets need dealers to cut expenses. “If you’re costing them money at the end of the day, there’s going to be a conversation.”
specs. If there’s a lot for that, let’s increase your specs. Instead of fve years on that casing, let’s do six.”
About 1,800 miles to the west, Commercial Tire Inc. is asking its feet customers similar questions. Commercial Tire operates 39 locations in Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
George Hammon, the corporate commercial sales manager, says one big change has been how medium-sized feets are asking to track more specifc details. “Tey want to track diferent products, Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 tires.” Tey’re measuring costs and mileage performance, and “I think they’re looking at all performances,” he says, meaning both tires and vehicles are evaluated on a regular basis.
“We have diferent tracking as far as performance calculators. Te fuel economy is done mostly of the computers in their trucks,” Hammon says.
“A lot of our business comes from agricultural service. Inside the feet segment there’s a lot of ag feets,” Hammon says.
“A farm business might have 15 to 25 10-wheeler trucks that operate during harvest and planting
time. Tey might get 15,000 to 30,000 miles a year. Some have 18-wheelers.”
No mater the truck size, Hammon says, “It all comes down to one thing. Cost per mile.” And even though it’s always the priority, it seems more critical when those farmers are begging, and praying for rain. “We’re not at quite the Dust Bowl yet. But our ag business, that drives a lot of our business in the Northwest. If we don’t have water, we’re in desperate trouble.” ■
What do feets want from you?
Modern Tire Dealer’s sister publication, Heavy Duty Trucking (HDT), tackled the topic of how feets should best work with their tire dealers. Given the bevy of data feets already are managing, tracking the miles, usage and wear of a feet’s tires is enough to drive a feet manager crazy. “That’s why a good relationship with an outside tire dealer or service provider is vital,” HDT’s Equipment Editor Jim Park wrote.
“Tire maintenance, perhaps one of the least attractive tasks in a feet’s work roster, is becoming increasingly data driven,” Park said. “Fleet managers now have access to tire information they didn’t have just a few years ago, thanks to tire pressure management systems, telematics, etc., and they are using that information to inform their maintenance and service needs.”
Park outlined the benefits available through dealers who utilize the services offered by the Big Three’s commercial programs, which manage vehicle make, model, horsepower and specifc unit number, as well as miles driven, tire brand and model, tire wear, maintenance performed and wheel position.
The data is used in countless ways. Sometimes it provides a big picture look at how much feets are spending, how many miles they’re driving and a general guide on how to budget for tires. Other times, it’s a tool to drill down and determine that a certain tire isn’t performing well, or that there’s a better option with more retreads available for better long-term savings.
On top of that, tires play a big role in the Federal Motor Carrier Administration’s Compliance Safety Accountability program.
As a result, Park wrote, “You can no longer afford to let your guard down on basic tire inspections.”
His fnal question for feet managers is an obvious opportunity for tire dealers to move in and provide support.
“Do your technicians really have the time and expertise for all that on top of their other responsibilities? It might be time to call in somebody who can make it all happen.”
Nearly 60 retread products qualify for the EPA’s SmartWay program
In June 2015, Modern Tire Dealer published a list of SmartWay-verifed truck tires — all 612 of them. In addition, fuel-conscious feet operators have nearly 60 SmartWayverifed retread products from which to choose.
There are 52 precure tread patterns and six mold cure tread paterns for drive and trailer axle tires on our frst-ever list of retread products approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) voluntary SmartWay program.
According to the EPA, “certain low rolling resistance retread products can reduce NOx emissions and fuel use of long haul Class 8 tractor-trailers by 3% or more, relative to other popular high rolling resistance retread products.” Fleet operators have to do their part, too, says the EPA. Tey must:
1. Use verifed retread technologies on both the drive and trailer axles. (EPA has also demonstrated incremental fuel savings when low rolling resistance tires are used just on the tractor and/or just on the trailer.) 2. Use the retread technologies on the axle positions for which verifcation is specifed. 3. Use verifed low rolling resistance steer tires.
4. Properly infate all tires according to the manufacturer’s specifcations.
Several manufacturers recently have proven the fuel efcient performance of their retread products to the EPA. Tey are:
• Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations LLC, which added the Bandag B760 FuelTech retread product to its commercial lineup in July 2015. • Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which introduced the G682RSD
Fuel Max, a precure retread designed for regional feets, in
April. Goodyear’s G392A SSD UniCircle and G394A SST
UniCircle wide-base retread products earned SmartWay verifcation in December 2014. • AcuTread Alliance Group received its first SmartWay verifcation for a mold cure drive retread, the FED 20/32nd
Drive Tread, in April 2015. Te company says SmartWay verifcation is pending for AcuTread low-profle wide-base drive and trailer retreads. • Vipal Rubber Corp., which says its VL130 ECO is the frst retread product in South America to be approved by the
EPA’s SmartWay program. ■
The following low rolling resistance retread technologies are Environmental Protection Agency SmartWay verifed when used on Class 8, line-haul tractor trailers:
Precure tread Brand Bandamatic Bridgestone/Bandag
Continental
Daeho Goodyear Ironhead Marangoni
Michelin
Oliver Pre-Q Galgo Vipal Mold cure tread Brand AcuTread Goodyear Michelin Drive BTM Smartech FuelTech Drive, B710 FuelTech, B760, B835 FuelTech HDL Eco Plus, HTL Eco Plus, HDR1 EP, HDR2 Eco Plus, HDL2DL Eco Plus, ContiEcoPlus HD3 DH 915 G305 ATS, G572, G392A, G505D, G682 RSD N/A Ringtread RDA-E, Ringtread RZYD, Ringtread RDAone, Ringtread RDA-E2 X One XDA, XDA2 AT, X One XDA HT, X Line Energy D, X Multi Energy D, X One Line Energy D Vantage Max Drive Pre-Q DP VT170 ECO Trailer TRA Smartech FuelTech-Trailer, B197 FuelTech, B135 Fuel Tech, BTR-UWB, FCR-Trailer HTL Eco Plus, HTL1
DH100 G316 AT, G394A RK515FE Ringtread RTA-E, Ringtread RTAone
XT-1 AT, X One XTA, X One Line Energy T, X One Multi Energy T ULP, Vantage Trailer II Pre-Q TA VL 130 ECO
Drive FED N/A XDA2 23 AT Trailer Shallow Trailer Tread (STT) G316AT MC XT-1, X One XTA
