Issuu

WeDelivered. YOU ASKED.

Dealer feedback has shaped our next-gen Tormenta A/T2 , launching in early 2025.

You EXPECT MORE from your tire partners, and at Fortune we strive to deliver tires that meet your needs at a value driven price.

•Rugged Durability: Aggressive tread design optimized for better traction and stability on all terrains.

•Exceptional Winter Performance: 3PMS-rated for wet and wintry conditions.

•Enhanced Sidewall Design: Upgraded sidewall treatment for increased durability.

•Smooth and Quiet Ride: Dual pitch design with PNS technology reduces road noise.

Become a dealer today and EXPECT MORE benefits.

A Passionate CHEERLEADER

Beth Barron has charged the team at Chabill’s Tire and Auto Service to provide world class customer service. Learn how our

Tire Dealer of the Year does it.

Photo: MTD

Mike Manges By

IHow to lose a casual customer

ARE YOUR EMPLOYEES MAKING A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION?

n today’s retail world, the old phrase, “You only get one chance to make a rst impression,” has never been more applicable. at’s especially true when dealing with rsttime customers.

One poor interaction or a series of poor interactions can turn a customer o — not just for a moment, but forever. Here’s a recent example.

A few weeks ago, I rented a car to drive to a tire dealer event some 400 miles away from home. I used our company’s online travel booking system to reserve a mid-size sedan from one of the big national car rental agencies.

I had no prior a nity or preference for the agency. It just popped up as my rst option.

I scheduled the car for pick up at 7 a.m. at a local airport, with the stated intent of returning the vehicle a day-and-a-half later.

than a three-row golf cart. It certainly wasn’t a mid-sized sedan! Already behind schedule, I threw in my bags, slid behind the wheel, started the car and headed toward the highway for a long, uncomfortable drive.

Mission accomplished, the next day I drove back to the airport, arriving an hour ahead of schedule while hoping for a smooth, trouble-free drop-o .

I drove into the rental return lot, expecting to see an employee who would greet me, take the keys, print a receipt and take possession of the car — a common process at most airports in the year 2024. ere was no such person.

e day arrived. I decided to get an early start and arrived at the rental car desk at 6:30. A clerk was standing behind the counter.

e only customer present, I walked up to the counter and began to explain that I was here to pick up my car.

Without looking up, the clerk cut me o mid-sentence and said, “We don’t open until seven. Have a seat.”

“OK,” I replied and stepped about 10 feet away from the counter. To kill some time, I began checking emails on my phone.

Another clerk appeared at the desk. He pointed to a row of chairs and barked, “Sit down, sir.”

I remained standing and continued to check my emails. (It’s a free country, right? And I wasn’t in anyone’s way. In fact, there was nobody else around me.)

At seven, I walked up to the desk. e rst clerk, who had reappeared, said to me, “You can’t cut in line. ere’s someone ahead of you.” Seeing nobody in front of me, I asked, “Where?”

“Over there,” she replied and pointed to a man who appeared to be in his 80s. He had walked up behind me.

Out of politeness — and also thinking the second clerk would reappear to check me in — I turned to the older gentleman and said, “Go ahead, sir.”

e other clerk never reappeared. e rst clerk and the customer then proceeded to hold a 15-minute conversation before she handed over his keys!

It took much longer than it should have, but I eventually received my keys and was told where to nd my car. I walked out to the spot and found a subcompact that was not much bigger

Are you delivering on promises made to customers? (Does this look like a mid-size sedan to you?)

I had no choice but to park the car in the spot where I had picked it up. I then walked into the terminal, with the intent of handing over my keys to a clerk at the rental desk, grabbing a receipt and heading home. No clerks were there. The lights were off. The place was empty. (At five on a Saturday a ernoon?)

Photo: MTD

Looking around, I eventually located a small drop-o box with two slots. One was marked “rental agreement” and one was marked “keys,” with no further instruction.

I put the keys in the rst slot and dropped my rental agreement in the other slot. en I noticed a sign that said, “Your receipt will be mailed to your home address.” (Mailed?) at sealed it for me. e previous day, I had made up my mind to never patronize this car rental company again. e lack of customer service at drop-o reinforced my decision.

Why did I share this story? To get you thinking.

When customers — especially new ones — walk into your store, do your salespeople stop what they’re doing, look them in the eye and greet them in a friendly manner? Do scheduled appointments at your dealership start and end on time? Do your employees always deliver promised products, prices and services? Does your dealership have a process in place to ensure that every customer experience is positive and memorable?

Longtime, loyal clients who have done business with you before might be willing to overlook a few customer service blunders.

People who are new to your dealership won’t be as understanding. It doesn’t take much to lose a casual customer. And when they’re gone, they’re gone. ■

If you have any questions or comments, please email me at mmanges@endeavorb2b.com.

ModernTireDealer.com

DIGITAL RESOURCES FOR THE INDEPENDENT TIRE DEALER

Stay tuned to MTD’s podcast!

The Modern Tire Dealer Show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Audible and MTD’s website.

Sign up for Modern Tire Dealer ’s eNewsletters to receive the latest tire news and our most popular articles. Go to www.moderntiredealer.com/subscribe

Mavis Tire Express Services Corp. says the integration of the people from its acquisition of nearly 600 NTB Tire & Service Centers and Tire Kingdom stores is complete and that the overall process has “gone as expected.”

Photo: Mavis Tire Express Services Corp.

Changes at the top

Changes at the top — whether in personnel or among the top tire dealerships in the country — are always of interest to Modern Tire Dealer readers and there’s been plenty of change recently, with hints of more to come. Whether that’s the departure of leadership at American Tire Distributors Inc. or the latest acquisition news, MTD editors keep track of all the details.

1. ATD names new interim CEO

2. Photos: Prinx Chengshan Tire North America celebrates ve years

3. Purcell Tire acquires Jack’s Tire and Oil

4. Why private equity is buying small tire dealerships

5. Photos: Up close: MTD 100 dealers

6. Reuters says Les Schwab may be up for sale

7. Mavis discusses NTB, Tire Kingdom integration

8. ‘Les Schwab legend’ John Britton has died

9. Goodyear announces second quarter results

10. CEAT to unveil three products at Farm Progress Show

DIGITAL EDITION

Check out MTD ’s digital edition at the top of our website’s homepage.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Like us Facebook: facebook.com/ModernTireDealer

3515 Massillon Rd., Suite 200 Uniontown, OH 44685 (330) 899-2200, fax (330) 899-2209

www.moderntiredealer.com

PUBLISHER

Greg Smith gsmith@endeavorb2b.com (330) 598-0375

EDITORIAL

Editor: Mike Manges, (330) 598-0368, mmanges@endeavorb2b.com

Managing Editor: Joy Kopcha, (330) 598-0338, jkopcha@endeavorb2b.com

Associate Editor: Madison Gehring, (330) 598-0308, mgehring@endeavorb2b.com

PRODUCTION

Art Director: Erica Paquette

Production Manager: Karen Runion, (330) 736-1291, krunion@endeavorb2b.com

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Darrell Bruggink

dbruggink@endeavorb2b.com (608) 299-6310

Marianne Dyal mdyal@endeavorb2b.com (706) 344-1388

Sean Thornton

sthornton@endeavorb2b.com (269) 499-0257

Kyle Shaw kshaw@endeavorb2b.com (651) 846-9490

Martha Severson mseverson@endeavorb2b.com (651) 846-9452

Chad Hjellming chjellming@endeavorb2b.com (651) 846-9463

MTD READER ADVISORY BOARD

Rick Benton, Black’s Tire Service Inc.

Jessica Palanjian Rankin, Grand Prix Performance

John McCarthy Jr., McCarthy Tire Service Co. Inc.

Jamie Ward, Tire Discounters Inc.

CUSTOMER/SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE (877) 382-9187

moderntiredealer@omeda.com

ENDEAVOR BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC

CEO: Chris Ferrell

President: June Grifﬁ n

COO: Patrick Rains

CRO: Paul Andrews

Chief Digital Ofﬁ cer: Jacquie Niemiec

Chief Administrative and Legal Ofﬁ cer: Tracy Kane

EVP Transportation: Kylie Hirko

VP Vehicle Repair: Chris Messer

VRG Editorial Director: Chris Jones

Modern Tire Dealer (USPS Permit 369170), (ISSN 0026-8496 print) is published monthly by Endeavor Business Media, LLC. 201 N Main St 5th Floor, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538. Periodicals postage paid at Fort Atkinson, WI, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Modern Tire Dealer, PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Publisher reserves the right to reject non-qualified subscriptions. Subscription prices: U.S. ($81.25 per year). All subscriptions are payable in U.S. funds. Send subscription inquiries to Modern Tire Dealer, PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257. Customer service can be reached toll-free at 877-382-9187 or at moderntiredealer@omeda.com for magazine subscription assistance or questions. Printed in the USA. Copyright 2024 Endeavor Business Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopies, recordings, or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the publisher. Endeavor Business Media, LLC does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any person or company for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in the material herein, regardless of whether such errors result from negligence, accident, or any other cause whatsoever. The views and opinions in the articles herein are not to be taken as official expressions of the publishers, unless so stated. The publishers do not warrant either expressly or by implication, the factual accuracy of the articles herein, nor do they so warrant any views or opinions by the authors of said articles.

Industry News

TBR tire tariffs remain in place

REMOVAL OF CHINA TBR SANCTIONS WOULD LIKELY CAUSE ‘INJURY’

Tariffs on truck and bus tires imported into the U.S. from China will remain in effect after the completion of a fiveyear review of the case.

The four commissioners with the International Trade Commission (ITC) recently voted 3-1 to continue to impose tariffs. The vote confirms that if the existing anti-dumping and countervailing orders were revoked it would likely result in the domestic tire industry’s injury “within a reasonably foreseeable time.”

Commissioner David Johanson voted against the ruling, while commissioners Amy Karpel, Rhonda Schmidtlein and Jason Kearns voted in the affirmative.

These tariffs were initially imposed in January 2019 and though each year the investigations are eligible for administrative reviews, the Department of Commerce (DOC) noted that all of its reviews have been rescinded — thus this required review at the five-year mark is the first of its kind for truck tires from China.

This case has been particularly unusual from the outset — at least when compared to others in the tire industry — because in 2017, the DOC initially did order tariffs on these products.

However, as the case continued through its regular stream and twoagency review, the ITC voted against imposing the duties. That decision ultimately was overturned in late-2018 when the United Steelworkers union took the case to the U.S. Court of International Trade for reconsideration. Thus, the ITC’s new determination came in early-2019.

The back-and-forth in 2018 caused a noticeable change in the import trends. The chart to the right shows volume figures the DOC tracked both before, during and since the tariffs were imposed. (The original petition seeking tariffs on these tires was filed in 2015.)

“Import levels rose to levels exceeding pre-petition levels in 2018,” the DOC noted, adding that since the tariffs were imposed in February 2019, “imports of truck and bus tires from China have substantially declined and have remained at less than 20% of pre-petition volumes from 2015.”

Given that trend, “Commerce determines that dumping would be likely to continue or recur if the order were revoked.” And ultimately, enough of the commissioners from the ITC agreed.

The DOC determined that without a tariff order, tires likely would be dumped at margins of up to 22.57%.

Countervailing duties — those designed to offset subsidies given to companies in China — will range from 23.92% for Double Coin Holdings Ltd. to 66.28% for Guizhou Tyre Import and Export Co. Ltd. The “all others” rate for

is 45.10%. —

The Department of Commerce says that if tariffs on truck and bus tires from China were eliminated, tires likely would be dumped into the U.S. at margins up to 22.57%.

Photo: MTD

Bites

Grismer nears 30 stores

The recent opening of a new location in Mason, Ohio, gives Dayton, Ohio-based Grismer Tire 28 retail stores. The new store — located some 20 miles north of Cincinnati — spans nearly 7,000 square feet and has 12 service bays, including one that has been designed for hybrid and electric vehicle service.

New Tire Outlet opens

Sun Auto Tire & Service Inc. has announced the opening of a new Tire Outlet location in Ocala, Fla. This is the third Tire Outlet location that has opened in the last 15 months and gives Sun Auto Tire 16 stores under the Tire Outlet banner.

Tire Discounters grows

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tire Discounters Inc. celebrated the grand opening of its new Dawsonville, Ga., location on Aug. 10. The store is the 21st Tire Discounters outlet in Georgia, a target growth area for the dealership.

TGI acquires Avaun Tire

Miami, Fla.-based Tire Group International LLC (TGI) has acquired Avaun Tire Supply, a wholesale distributor based in Portland, Ore. Avaun Tire and TGI have been partners since 2016, when Avaun Tire was founded by Sherko Rasouli and Freddie Capshaw.

Goodyear to invest

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. is investing more than $418 million in both construction and new equipment at its consumer tire factory in Napanee, Ontario, to build tires for the electric vehicle and all-terrain segments. The infusion will add 200 jobs at the plant, one of two that Goodyear operates in Canada.

Bridgestone goes digital

All of Bridgestone Americas Inc.’s 2,200-plus company-owned stores will soon offer digital vehicle inspections. The move to digital inspections is part of the company’s “Go Paperless” initiative.

Nitto beefs up products, dealer program

Dealers can expect to see more products and an enhanced associate dealer program from Nitto Tire U.S.A., Keiko Brockel, the company’s president and CEO, told MTD in this exclusive interview.

MTD: How was the first half of 2024 for Nitto? What were some of the highlights and challenges?

Brockel: In short, the market in 2024 has been challenging for three reasons. Overall economic condition with high interest rates and inflation on consumer goods has made it difficult, especially for the premium product segments. Reduction of import duties has created more severe competition. Labor issues at the retail level persist as today’s youngergeneration workforce prefers alternate “flex jobs,” as opposed to traditional work. However, we are confident and have high expectations for the second half of the year as we will be launching an incredible new product.

MTD: What’s your take on the state of tire demand in the U.S.?

Brockel: We see demand fluctuate based on many factors, including import duty and potential logistic challenges as examples. However, we are in a good position, given the fact that the majority of our products are built in the U.S.

“Our focus will also be to double down on our Enthusiast Circuit associate dealer program,” says Keiko Brockel, president and CEO of Nitto Tire U.S.A. Inc.

MTD: Nitto has a long, well-established history in the light truck tire segment. How would you describe the U.S. light truck tire market as we move through the second half of the year? Do you believe the light truck segment will continue to grow in the long-term?

Brockel: We are doing well as we are seeing year-over-year growth in our Grappler products and since the vast majority of our LTR products are produced domestically, our fill-rates have improved, which has helped our sales.

We see the overall demand in the LTR market sustaining as tires are ultimately a necessity purchase. However, there is a much greater level of competition.

We forecast that the current economic pressures faced by consumers will continue for at least the remainder of 2024, but there are both macro and micro-economic factors that can bring upon rapid change that we will need to be ready to respond to.

MTD: Nitto recently rolled out a new, 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMS)-certified product, the Motivo 365 all-season ultra-high performance tire. Can you tell us more about this tire? How has it been received by tire dealers and end users?

Brockel: To our delight, consumers have showered us with positive reviews on the Motivo 365 for its attractive design. We see this as a great accomplishment, given the fact that the product segment is generally viewed to be dull and boring.

As the name suggests, the Motivo 365 is 3PMS-rated for year-round driving. We placed the utmost effort to develop this product to deliver exceptional performance. And what we think our dealers and customers/consumers appreciate even more is the exceptional value proposition of the product.

Motivo 365 has been well-received as an excellent option for these consumers who desire to have an all-weather product without breaking the bank.

MTD: How would you describe Nitto’s current fill-rate and inventory position?

Brockel: We are in good position as the majority of our products are produced in our U.S. factory. We continue to make incremental improvements to both our fill-rate and inventory position.

MTD: What investments is Nitto making in its dealer/distributor network in the U.S.?

Brockel: As other manufacturers are making concerted efforts to improve their associate dealer programs, our focus will also be to double down on our Enthusiast Circuit associate dealer program.

We have plans to invest in greatly improving the overall experience, support and communication through the use of innovative, new technologies. — Mike Manges

Photo: Nitto Tire U.S.A. Inc.

A LONG WAY TOGETHER

WHEREVER YOU ARE, BKT IS WITH YOU

No matter how challenging your needs, BKT is with you offering an extensive product portfolio for every field such as agriculture, OTR and industrial applications.

BKT provides concrete, reliable and high-quality solutions to your requests and working needs. Wherever you are, BKT is with you.

BKT USA Inc.

202 Montrose West Ave. Suite 240

Copley, Ohio 44321

Toll free: (+1) 888-660-0662 - Office: (+1) 330-836-1090

Fax: (+1) 330-836-1091

Bites

Monro sees declines

Tire sales at Monro Inc.’s stores declined by 8% on a year-over-year basis during the company’s first fiscal quarter. Monro’s overall net income during the period totaled $5.9 million, down from $8.8 million during the same prior-year period.

Yokohama TWS honored

Yokohama TWS recently received the Global Above & Beyond Award at the Hyster-Yale Global Suppliers Conference for the excellent level of customer service that the tire company provides.

Sullivan sponsored race

Norwell, Mass-based Sullivan Tire Co. Inc. was the silver sponsor of the 52nd annual Falmouth Road Race, which took place Aug. 18 in Falmouth, Mass.

Toyo promotes Holst

Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. has announced that Wally Holst will replace Kenny Fredrick as the new director of sales for its eastern division. Fredrick, who previously held the job, will be retiring.

SRNA names directors

Sumitomo Rubber North America Inc. (SRNA) has promoted Cliff Stewart to director of sales for passenger car and light truck tires. Sam Williams is taking over Stewart’s previous position as SRNA’s director of sales for commercial truck tires.

Maxam elevates Edds

Maxam Tire North America Inc. has promoted Jeremy Edds to solid off-the-road and national account sales manager. Edds joined Maxam in 2023 as a sales manager.

Ralson promotes Roe

Ralson Tire North America Inc. has named Mark Roe to the new role of vice president of sales for the western United States. He will help build relationships with new clients.

ZC breaks ground on Mexico plant

Zhongce Rubber Group Co. Ltd. (ZC Rubber) recently broke ground on its new plant in Saltillo, Mexico, that will start production later next year.

The plant will be up and running by the end of 2025 and is located around 150 miles from the United States/Mexico border. It represents an investment of $550 million.

The factory initially will have an annual production capacity of 13.5 million passenger tires and 50,000 tons of OTR tires.

“This will greatly benefit both the North American and Latin American markets, providing customers with more efficient and high-quality products and services,” say ZC Rubber officials.

Purcell Tire acquires Jack’s Tire

Purcell Tire & Rubber Co. has acquired Logan, Utah-based Jack’s Tire and Oil Management Co. Inc. Terms of the deal, which combines two of the largest commercial tire dealerships in the United States, were not disclosed.

With the acquisition, Purcell Tire gains 21 Jack’s Tire locations, giving the Potosi, Mo.-based dealership 85 total locations throughout 14 states.

“We’re excited about the combination of these two companies, as it brings us a strong footprint for competing in a dynamic and changing marketplace,” says Roger Lucas, CEO of Purcell Tire. “It sets the table for Purcell Tire to be one of the top servicing dealers in the market.”

The integration of the 88-year-old Purcell Tire with the 77-year-old Jack’s Tire brings 165 years of combined expertise to the commercial, OTR, retail, retreading and automotive service sectors.

In 2020, Jack’s Tire merged with A&E Tire Inc., which was based in Denver, Colo. According to the 2024 MTD 100, published before this acquisition, Purcell Tire is the 17th largest tire dealership in the U.S. Jack’s Tire ranked 70th on the list.

ZC Rubber’s plant in Mexico represents an investment of $550 million.

Photo: ZC Rubber

Purcell Tire & Rubber Co.’s recent purchase of Jack’s Tire and Oil Management Co. Inc. gives Purcell Tire 21 additional locations.

Photo: Purcell Tire & Rubber Co.

On-Road Comfort. Rugged Off-Road Power.

The Dueler A/T Ascent is a premium all-terrain tire equipped to handle whatever comes your way. Effortlessly navigate between a premium on-road experience and unyielding off-road capability. The precision sawtooth edges are designed to claw through rugged terrain, while the entire tread pattern is designed to reduce vibrations and noise for a smooth and comfortable ride.

Bites Is Les Schwab up for sale?

AACF taps Kairys

The Automotive Aftermarket Charitable Foundation has appointed John Kairys as its new executive director. Kairys was recently the vice president of the parts and service group for TBC Corp.

TIA opens registration

The Tire Industry Association (TIA) has opened registration for its 2025 OTR Tire Conference. To sign up for the event, which will take place Feb. 19-22, 2025, visit TIA’s website.

Ohio dealers fight theft

The state of Ohio is closer than ever to enacting legislation designed to curtail catalytic converter theft. Ohio House Bill 328 passed the House Chamber earlier this year “and hopefully will pass the Senate this fall,” said Alex Boehnke, executive director of the Ohio Tire & Automotive Association.

Roger Duininck dies

Roger Duininck, longtime owner of St. Cloud, Minn.-based Royal Tire Inc., has died at age 87. In 1963, he founded St. Cloud Tire and Tread. In 1986, he acquired Royal Tire and served as the dealership’s president and CEO until 1997, when he sold the business to his children.

Schwab’s Britton dies

John Britton, former Les Schwab Tire Centers Inc. president of operations, died on Aug. 7 at the age of 72. Britton began his Les Schwab Tires career at age 16, working part-time at a store in Klamath Falls, Ore. He retired 50 years later in 2018, as president and the longest-serving employee in Les Schwab history.

S&M Tire’s Sieff dies John Sieff, longtime owner of Minneapolis, Minn.-based S&M Tire Co. and a founder of the Summit Tire Group, has died at the age of 96. A pioneer in working with Asian suppliers to develop private brand tires, he was inducted into the Tire Industry Hall of Fame in 2005.

Reuters is reporting that Meritage Group LP, the investment firm that owns Les Schwab Tire Centers Inc., is “exploring options” to sell the dealership.

In an Aug. 9 report, Reuters said the Bend, Ore.-based tire dealership could be valued at more than $7 billion and that Meritage “has tapped investment bankers at Goldman Sachs to launch a sales process.”

The possible sale “is expected to garner interest from private equity firms and other tire retailers,” according to anonymous sources quoted by Reuters.

A Les Schwab spokesperson contacted by MTD declined to comment.

Meritage Group acquired Les Schwab from members of the Schwab family in September 2020. At the time, Jack Cuniff, then-CEO of Les Schwab, said that the “decision to sell has always been about securing the long-term success of the company.”

With 491 company-owned stores, Les Schwab is the fourth largest tire dealership on the recently published 2024 MTD 100.

Schuette out, Feder in at ATD

Stuart Schuette, CEO of American Tire Distributors Inc. (ATD) since 2016, has left the company, which has appointed Michael Feder as its interim CEO.

Feder will be “focused on driving the company’s strategy and transformation to grow the business and help its customers, partners and communities thrive and drive into the future,” according to his biography published on ATD’s website.

Feder joins ATD after serving as managing director at AlixPartners for 20-plus years. AlixPartners advised ATD during its bankruptcy reorganization in 2018.

ATD told MTD that Schuette “has resigned to pursue a new opportunity outside of the (tire) industry.”

USTMA revises shipment projections

The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) has boosted its 2024 tire shipments projections. The group predicts that 2024 will be a strong year for all facets of the replacement tire market.

The latest numbers show improvement in the replacement passenger, light truck and medium truck tire categories since the USTMA published its previous round of projections in March 2024.

Overall, USTMA predicts 2024 shipments will total 337.4 million units, up from the 331.9 million tires shipped in 2023. (In March, the group projected an overall market of 335.7 million tires — an uptick of 0.5%.)

The 337.4 million units would surpass the previous record of 335.2 million units in 2021.

In original equipment numbers, the passenger and truck unit forecasts have turned downward since March. As a result, any gains in shipments for passenger OE tires have been erased to mostly flat, while OE truck tire units are now expected to drop 5% compared to 2023.

In the replacement market, however, the passenger, light truck and medium truck categories have all picked up steam since USTMA’s March projections. When compared to 2019 (pre-COVID-19) numbers, light truck replacement units are up 10.2%, while medium truck replacement units are up 19.5%.

Reuters is reporting that Les Schwab Tire Centers Inc. is valued at $7 billion.

Photo: Les Schwab Tire Centers Inc.

Michael Feder is the interim CEO of American Tire Distributors Inc.

Photo: ATD

Numbers ThatCount

Di erent retail brands operated by Sun Auto Tire & Service Inc.

Source: 2024 MTD 100

Sun Auto Tire & Service Inc.

Number of warehouses operated by Dunlap & Kyle Co. Inc., the most of any dealer on the MTD 100

Source: 2024 MTD 100

Number of companies on the MTD 100 with 11 locations

Source: 2024 MTD 100

Number of warehouses operated by the three largest tire dealers in the U.S.

Source: 2024 MTD 100

Discount Tire

4,617

Monro Inc. 0

Combined number of locations operated by the three largest independent tire dealers in the U.S.

Source: 2024 MTD 100

Photo:

Photo: Chapel Hill Tire

Photo:

Photo: Joey Brent

Your Marketplace

John Healy By

TAnother ho-hum month TIRE SELLOUT BUCKS DRIVING TRENDS

ire dealers indicate sellout in July was flat, if not down slightly, and the numbers show a tiny bit of improvement from June. Dealers were down 0.3% in July, compared to the 1.4% drop they reported in the previous month. And for August, we’re expecting similar results, as we’re faced with a tough year-ago comparable. We would not be surprised to see similar flat to slightly declining trends in the month ahead.

Regionally, both the Midwest and Southeast were in the negative, while other regions saw flat or positive volume trends. The best numbers were reported in the Northeast, with dealers showing a 5% increase in volume year-over-year.

Given the turbulence and volatile conditions tied to inflation and other macroeconomic factors, we turn to additional data points to get a view that pertains to automobile travel.

Miles driven often correlates with the tire volume data, but that’s not an absolute rule. July was one of those examples. Mileage was actually up slightly in July — in the low single digits. But that’s an improvement over the slight decline measured during the second quarter of 2024. Our Miles Driven Momentum Index registered a 1.8% year-over-year increase in July, following a 1.2% drop in June. The July increase comes on top of the 2.9% gains measured in July 2023. We continue to see miles driven trends ahead of pre-pandemic trends.

‘When it comes to consumer demand, tire dealers continue to point to drivers who are deferring tire purchases until later.’

Raw material costs continue to increase. The price of the basket of raw materials needed to build a basic replacement tire grew 11.7% in July and that follows a 9.4% average increase during the second quarter. If this pricing was to hold steady, it would equate to an 8.5% year-over-year hike in supply costs.

The biggest driver in the raw material price increases is tied to natural rubber, which as of July has risen 42% year-overyear as supply remains under pressure in Southeast Asia. The tensions in the Middle East also prompted oil prices to increase an average of 7% in the month compared to year-ago numbers. Synthetic rubber and carbon black prices were both on the rise as well, while tire fabric and cord costs slipped 2.6%.

About a quarter of the tire dealers who responded to our survey said there had been some price concessions from tire manufacturers. We believe those were primarily tier-one tiremakers and those in the upper ranks of tier-two manufacturers.

DEFER AND TRADE DOWN

When it comes to consumer demand, tire dealers continue to point to drivers who are deferring tire purchases until later, and those who are buying but still opting for lower-priced options. We note healthy demand for low-cost, tier-three tire brands during the month. Dealers said demand for premium tier-one and tier-two brands was soft during the period.

Overall, July consumer demand for passenger and light truck replacement tires was down year-over-year. Six percent of our independent dealer contacts reported negative demand trends in July, an improvement from the 42% who were down in June.

For the third month in a row, tier-three tire brands were the most popular among consumers, according to dealers who participate in our survey.

As we’ve noted before, this doesn’t match the long-term trends of our survey, which typically puts tier-two tires in the top of the demand charts. But in July, tier-two brands sunk to last place in our survey, with tier-one products taking second place. We see July as another month of consumers trading down to lower-priced, value-oriented tires. Despite this recent focus on tier-three, we continue to expect that tier-two brands will be the most in demand long-term, given their balance of performance and price for consumers.

We believe these summer trends are largely muted and tire sellout slightly depressed in part because of little precipitation and thus little urgency to drive consumer demand. The second quarter was boosted by a robust April, which we believe was largely driven by tax refund dollars being utilized in the tire retail space. ■

SOURCE: NORTHCOAST RESEARCH ESTIMATES

John Healy is a managing director and research analyst with Northcoast Research Holdings LLC, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Healy covers a variety of subsectors of the automotive industry. If you would like to participate in the monthly dealer discussions, contact him at john.healy@ northcoastresearch.com.

VREDESTEIN PINZA: FROM HIGHWAYS

A Passionate CHEERLEADER

BY JOY KOPCHA

Beth Barron guides Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service and is MTD’s 2024 Tire Dealer of the Year

Beth Barron says she’s an open book. “I think some people ﬁ nd that strange. I’m very open with my vendors — what I’m doing and what they can expect and why I’m not buying from them, or why I am buying from them.”

Beth Barron’s family entered the tire business before she was born. Yet, it didn’t seem she was destined to become a tire dealer.

She studied political science in college, thought about law school and brie y considered a career in real estate. As she sorted out her future, she decided to bide her time by going to work for her father at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service.

More than 30 years later, Barron is still there, steering the tire dealership — which has 18 stores in Southern Louisiana — as its CEO. Her team describes her as a driven, competent leader with a vision for the future. She is focused on helping her team shine and provide world-class customer service — and doing so pro tably.

She’s a rare female tire dealership owner and she’s also Modern Tire Dealer’s 2024 Tire Dealer of the Year.

A LOAN AND A DREAM

Barron is the second oldest of four children and like so many other second-generation tire dealers, she grew up in and alongside her family’s business. Her earliest Chabill’s Tire memory isn’t of a store or a speci c event, but of a childhood weekend chore: cleaning her dad’s o ce.

Charley Gowland was an accountant by trade and one day in the 1960s he was doing the books inside the Western Auto store in Franklin, La., when a salesman for the B.F. Goodrich Co. walked in the door. Gowland asked the salesman why the

Tire Dealer of the Year

tiremaker didn’t sell its tires 20 miles down the road in his hometown of Morgan City.

As the story goes, the salesman said, “Nobody wants to sell BFGoodrich in Morgan City. Do you want to sell BFGoodrich tires in Morgan City?”

Gowland replied he didn’t know a thing about the tire business, but he took the man’s business card.

Barron says, “My dad always wanted to run his own business. He knew that about himself. He just didn’t know what kind of business. He knew nothing about cars (and) never worked on his own car. But I guess he saw this opportunity. And so he had to go out and find a partner who knew something about cars.”

Enter Billy Parker, someone Gowland knew only as an acquaintance. He told Parker what he was considering and asked if Parker wanted to be his partner. They both invested $2,000 — though Gowland had to borrow his share from his father-inlaw, who also let them use a small building he owned to get started.

The two men combined their first names to create their new business’ name and in September 1968, Chabill’s Tire and Auto Service was born.

“He came from a very poor background,” Barron says of her father, “so I think his idea was ‘This is how I’m going to make my life. This is how I’m going to be a success.’”

When customers came in, Parker inspected their vehicles and he told Gowland what was needed. Then it was Gowland’s job to sell those parts and services to the customer. Over time, he learned about automobiles and parts and repairs. Just two years later, the men moved Chabill’s Tire to a larger store in Morgan City. That location, known as “Store No. 1,” remains in operation.

“But my dad was not interested in being a salesman all his life,” says Barron.

Beth Barron has grown up alongside her family’s tire dealership, and that almost automatically equates to having photos of herself amid stacks of tires. Here she’s pictured at the far left next to her sister Catherine and a cousin. Her father Charley Gowland is pictured in the back row between his

and

“He knew that from the get-go. He wanted to own and run a business.”

Gowland wanted to expand, and in 1972, a second Chabill’s Tire store opened in nearby Houma. Store three followed in 1975 and then came the warehouse and office in 1980 in Morgan City. Parker remained a partner in the business until Gowland bought him out in 2012.

By the time Gowland died in 2019, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service had grown to 18 locations with more than 130 employees across Southern Louisiana.

‘THE BOTTOM DROPPED OUT’

Despite the dealership’s growth, there were rough years, The business almost didn’t survive the 1980s. Back then, Morgan City’s economy was tightly tied to the oil industry. Large oil field service companies, including Halliburton Co. and Schlumberger (SLB), had offices and vehicles in Morgan City. There were fabricators and boat companies — businesses of all sorts that supported the off-shore oil business. Collectively, they drove the local economy, so when oil prices dropped dramatically and oil drilling stopped abruptly, the businesses that had grown to touch and reinforce the local industry faltered, too.

two daughters

alongside a former Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. employee.

Photo: Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service

Years ago employees who hit the 10-year mark of employment at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service were recognized with a painted portrait that hangs in the corporate office hallway. Beth Barron’s portrait hangs next to her father’s. Photo: MTD

BETH BARRON to

on being named the 2024 Tire Dealer of the Year From

At NTW, we can’t think of anyone more deserving of this prestigious recognition, given her dedication and outstanding contributions to the industry. As a proud supplier of Chabill’s, we, through joint business planning, are committed to supporting Beth’s business, vision, and invaluable partnership, ensuring continued success and growth for the future.

Tire Dealer of the Year

“So many people were unemployed,” says Barron. “ ere was no money. Businesses were all going belly up, so the accounts receivable we were holding, we couldn’t call in.

“I was a kid in that household when he was going through that stress,” she says of her dad. “I think that changed him. Before the ‘80s (my parents) would go o and do this vacation or they would go gol ng and do things with their friends.

Dad kind of felt the business was in a place where it could run itself.”

e oil bust of the 1980s humbled Gowland. “The bottom dropped out and things got really bad, really fast,” says Barron.

Gowland dove back in head- rst. He needed to cut payroll in the o ce. “My mom went to work for him for free for a lot of years. My mom would do clerical work, national account work, payables.

MEET BETH BARRON

Family: Husband Carey; Children Bradley Schefferstein (wife: Amber), Amanda Michel (husband: Joe), Charlie Barron (wife: Chelsea) and Patrick Barron; grandchildren Nate, Spencer, Isla and Ellie. Parents Peggy Gowland and the late Charley Gowland; Siblings Catherine, Charles and Joanna.

First memory in the tire business: Cleaning my dad’s ofﬁce. I was around 8. My dad was a heavy smoker until he stopped smoking on his 20th wedding anniversary. He quit cold turkey. But before that, he would smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, and I used to have to empty those ashtrays off his desk.

If you weren’t a tire dealer, what would you be? I have no idea. I guess a real estate appraiser, but I don’t even know if that would have come to fruition.

Tell me about your best day at work ever: There are a lot of really great days. Milestones we’ve hit, locations that we’ve opened.

What would you tell an 18-year-old who is considering the tire industry? There are so many opportunities in this industry that you don’t have to have a college degree for. You don’t have to have any kind of schooling. You just have to choose a path. If you choose to be customer facing, then you better be happy talking to people all day and a smile better come naturally. And in your heart of hearts, you should want to make people happy. You should want to service people and do the right thing for the right reasons. You don’t have to know a thing about tires. You don’t have to know a thing about ﬁ xing a car. But if your heart is in the right place and you want to make other people’s lives better, and if you can be positive and happy and have your customer’s best interest at heart, then the sky is the limit for you in this business.

If you’re technical and you like to work with your hands and you’re in South Louisiana and you’re not afraid of a little sweat, technicians make $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year and some of them have never had any formal training. It’s because they’re good at what they do. They don’t have comebacks and they’ve learned how to be as efﬁcient as possible. If that’s what interests you, you could make a very good living.

She was doing all that to help keep the business a oat through the ‘80s.”

Peggy Gowland recently told her daughter that there was a banker who was also a family friend and he held the business’ bank notes.

“And basically, he didn’t call them in,” says Barron. “( e banker) said ‘Charley, I believe you’re going to make it through this. We’re going to make it through with you.’”

Favorite book: I love happily-ever-after stories. I love to read a book where I know in the end the boy and the girl are going to end up together and live happily ever after.

Favorite movie: Notting Hill.

Actress who would portray you on screen: Sandra Bullock

Favorite sport : All LSU sports.

What would be your hype song? Eye of the Tiger.

Best way to spend a day off: On the beach.

A motto/phrase you live by: World-class customer service.

How do you manage stress? Shopping makes me happy.

Favorite food: My mom’s chicken sausage gumbo.

A hidden talent? I can carry a tune.

Something the world needs to know about Southern Louisiana: We don’t all talk like swamp people.

On a race track are you in the slow lane or hell on wheels? I’m hell on wheels. I’ve got a heavy foot.

When you were young what celebrity poster hung on your wall? Shaun Cassidy. Olympic event you’d have the best chance to win a medal? Table tennis.

Best tire trip you’ve ever taken: Ireland with Bridgestone. We ate dinner in Christ Church with an opera singer singing to us. We stayed at Adare Manor. The experiences on that trip were experiences you cannot get on your own.

The Barron family, from left: Patrick, Amanda, Carey, Beth and Charlie.

Congratulations Beth Barron of Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service for being named Modern Tire Dealer’s 2024 Tire Dealer of the Year.

From your friends at Bridgestone and CFNA, we appreciate your partnership.

MODERN TIRE DEALER’S 2024 TIRE DEALER OF THE YEAR

Tire Dealer of the Year

at was an enormous gi , but it didn’t stop all of the bleeding. Other businesses crumbled, including many who were Chabill’s Tire’s customers. Some of the Gowlands’ friends lost their livelihoods and were unable to pay what they owed.

“It was a hard, hard time and he made it through,” says Barron.

FINDING HER WAY

When Barron graduated from college in 1992, she returned home from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La., with a degree in political science. She thought she might become a lawyer. “ ank God I didn’t do that,” she says.

But she was also newly engaged to another Morgan City native, Carey Barron, who had moved home to work for his father’s business.

She didn’t know what her long-term

career plan was, so she went to work for Chabill’s Tire.

She and Carey got married in 1993 and soon started their family. Along the way Barron worked in di erent departments in the dealership’s corporate o ce. “I did payables for a while. I did every job in this o ce. I was a receptionist. I did payroll. I did collection calls. I never liked that job.”

One of her bigger assignments came when she took over advertising responsibilities. As a young mother, she quickly discovered she wasn’t destined to be a stay-at-home mom, so once her four children were all in school, she decided to return to the family business full-time.

“ at would have been probably 20 years ago. I started taking more of an active interest (in the business). My dad was great. He was ne with me coming and going (when her children were young). He let

HUSBAND AND WIFE

The trials of working together

me go through all of that and gave me a place to land.”

But Barron said she and her father never had a formal conversation about what her long-term role at the company would be. Gowland put his daughter to work, but he maintained control. With his background in accounting, he was xated on the numbers. He reviewed every single sales ticket — for years — and marked them up with his trademarked red pen. (Carey Barron says the company bought red pens in bulk, even though only one person used them.)

Barron says her father would call store managers and demand to know why they didn’t perform an alignment on a particular car. “He just felt like we had to squeeze every dollar out of every ticket,” because he did not want to relive those dark days of the 1980s oil bust.

For all but ve years of her 30-plus year career at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service, Beth Barron has worked alongside her husband Carey.

Like her, he’s ﬁ lled lots of different roles over the years and moved up the ladder. He’s worked in commercial sales and managed stores. Today he is director of operations.

Carey Barron joined the company in December 1993, the same year he and Barron got married. They started their family and were busy young parents as they juggled the responsibilities at home and at work. But as they both rose in the ranks at the ofﬁce and their children got older, Barron says tension was building at home and at work.

And, it was becoming unclear to others which of them might succeed Barron’s father, Charley Gowland, as the company’s leader. Plus, Barron also had a brotherin-law working for the company.

“I don’t think Dad wanted to leave the business in Carey’s hands, not because Carey’s not capable, but in my dad’s head this is his family business,” and she believes he didn’t think turning over the business to a son-in-law was the same thing as handing it over to one of his children. Then add in the fact that it was rare — and

remains rare — for women to lead tire dealerships in the U.S., and Barron says things eventually were at an awkward standstill.

“It’s hard to navigate all of that,” she recalls. So in 2008

Carey Barron left Chabill’s for work elsewhere.

It would have been a perfect time for Barron and her father to have a formal conversation about plans for the future. But that never happened.

Carey Barron has worked alongside his wife Beth Barron for all but ﬁ ve years. He’s convinced the Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service team believes in his wife’s direction and would follow her into a burning building. “I think that applies here.”

“My dad never said anything, but everybody else that worked here then understood,” she says. “It enabled me to take that position” of future leader.

As time went on, and the company continued to grow, Martin Michel, who was working as a general manager of Chabill’s retail business at the time, said he needed help. He thought the company could use someone who was focused on operations.

There wasn’t an obvious internal candidate, but Michel had one in mind —

Carey Barron. By this time the Barron children were older and the family pressures at home had eased. Both Beth and Carey thought they could make it work.

She says, “We brought it to Dad and he deferred to me and said, ‘if you’re good, we’re good.’” So, in April 2013, Carey Barron returned to Chabill’s.

In those ﬁ ve years, his wife had cemented her role.

“When I came back, it was so much simpler,” Carey Barron says. And it was clear to Gowland what Beth wanted. “Everybody was extremely comfortable and knew that Beth was taking the reins.”

Tire Dealer of the Year

The oil crisis made Gowland feel vulnerable. He didn’t want to get caught unprepared ever again. “(It) forced him to pay attention and get rid of all the fluff and get down to the nitty-gritty of every day,

out of that mindset. He kicked himself for letting it go. He was going to survive and he did, and he flourished after that. But he would not let go of that grip he had.” She has great respect for the determination and grit required of both of her parents to survive that difficult period. And Barron has recognized that Chabill’s Tire hasn’t faced anything like that in the decades she’s worked in the business, let alone in the five years since she’s taken over as CEO.

It wasn’t until 2013 — at the earliest — that Barron says her father started to give her more authority. She managed more top-level duties and he listened to her advice. She and other members of the dealership’s executive team tried to convince him he didn’t need to call the stores and question every sales ticket and if he did call, it didn’t need to be so confrontational. Since she took over as CEO in January 2019, Barron has brought a new executive approach. “Generally I’m very positive,” she says, preferring to label herself as head company cheerleader, rather than chief

Beth Barron leans on her executive team to lead and grow Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service. Front row from the left is her son, Charlie Barron, Beth Barron, and her husband Carey Barron. Back row from left is Eric Roundtree and Martin Michel.

Photo: MTD

BENEFITS FROM ONE CHANGE

Barron is not afraid to make changes. Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service opened its doors in 1968 due to a partnership with BFGoodrich and as a result, the company’s relationship with Michelin North America Inc., which owns the BFGoodrich brand, has been an important one for decades. And for most of that time, Chabill’s Tire bought direct.

But in 2020, Barron made a change. A new salesperson for National Tire Wholesale (NTW) approached Barron and asked for her business. She wasn’t happy with some changes that had been made to her direct program with Michelin and was open to other options.

“Dad and I had talked about this deal with Michelin and how upset I was and he’s like, ‘You’re going to make the best decision. Whatever decision you need to make or you want to make, you just need to weigh the pros and cons.’”

After six months of negotiations, Chabill’s Tire became a NTW customer “and now that’s the biggest relationship I have in this business. I buy a lot from them.”

It also opened the door to diversify-

ing the dealership’s lineup of tire brands.

Around the same time, Barron also negotiated a deal to become a direct customer of Bridgestone Americas Inc.

“It’s not contentious,” she says. “I just don’t want to have one company be able to

BETH BARRON CONGRATULATIONS

customer. Every tire purchase at Chabill’s Tire is backed by “Charley’s Dozen,” a 12-point promise that includes free service and a price match guarantee, plus a 30-day ride warranty on certain brands.

Technician Adam Babin prepares to mount a set of new tires for a

Photo: MTD

Tire Dealer of the Year

pull the rug out from under me. Opening up the relationship with NTW (has) grown into so much more. ey’re our number one wholesaler.”

Chabill’s Tire also has relationships with Dunlap & Kyle Co. Inc. and TireHub LLC.

“I believe in meeting programs — which my dad was huge on — so I make choices about who I buy from and what we do based on those programs. at’s why, (if) the stores are going to buy from somewhere other than NTW, you’re going to call somebody and tell them why.

“We know they’re not going to have everything all the time, but we want to know you’ve gone through the paces” of trying to secure tires through the preferred distributor. “I want to maximize my best program.

“We sell about 55,000 (passenger and light truck) tires a year. You’ve got to be really careful about where you’re buying from because that can get split up and then you end up with no back-end money. When you’re a small business and small volume, that back-end money makes a ton of di erence.

“Everybody understands that about me,” says Barron. “All my managers understand. And it’s the same thing with the parts relationships. NAPA is our rst call. We buy over 75% of our parts from NAPA.”

e relationship with NTW — and the twice-daily deliveries the company provides to Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service stores — has created other opportunities for change.

Chabill’s Tire has two warehouses: one in Morgan City and another in Baton

A GAMECHANGER

Credit opens the door to opportunities

Rouge that’s connected to one of the company’s retail stores in that market. ere’s a eet of trucks and a team of drivers who make deliveries to the company’s 18 stores.

“We still run our own routes two or three times a week but having NTW has taken those vehicles o the road,” says Barron. “We used to run every day — sometimes twice a day.”

Relying on NTW has decreased the need for those company-owned trucks to run as frequently. “I don’t have to invest as much in infrastructure and trucks and people to load and unload things because I do more business with the wholesalers.”

And it’s reduced how much inventory Chabill’s Tire needs to stock. Barron says the dealership’s warehouse inventories are probably half the units they once were.

Give her credit, because Beth Barron can admit when she is wrong.

She didn’t believe customer ﬁ nancing could be a sales driver for Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service.

The company had offered other automotive-branded credit cards in the past, but none had moved the sales needle. They all had their own names and branding, and she didn’t want to promote another company at the sales counter.

“I never really bought into financing because I didn’t want to have a Goodyear card or a Firestone card. If we’re gonna have a credit card I want it to be a Chabill’s Tire card. The ﬁ nancing companies, in order to get your own card, the volume always seemed so huge to me,” she says. And she was uncertain if her customers would respond favorably in order for the stores to hit those high-dollar goals.

In 2019, another credit card opportunity presented itself when Chabill’s Tire began ordering direct from Bridgestone Americas Inc. The tiremaker made an emphatic pitch for the card and bank it owns — Credit First National Association (CFNA).

She was hesitant, but at the same time impressed by the program, which offered a low interest rate and low transaction rate. Bridgestone ultimately agreed to front all the upfront expense of creating the Chabill’s Tire-branded card and the

marketing to support it. The catch: customers had to put $1 million in sales on the card in 15 months.

She had zero conﬁ dence the business would hit that goal. And if it didn’t, she’d have to repay Bridgestone for those upfront costs.

It was her husband who convinced her it would work.

“I had heard all the stories about ﬁ nancing and the higher ticket average and more repeat business. I just didn’t believe it,” Barron says. “But when we do something as a company, we do it. We built a program around it where it was very advantageous for customers to get the Chabill’s card. We made it part of the sales people and the managers’ commission programs. And I think we did $1 million (in sales) in six months.”

As of August 2024, about 36% of the company’s total retail sales ﬂows through the Chabill’s Tire credit card every year.

It has increased average ticket sales and “taken our business to a completely different level,” Barron says. “It gives our customers a way to pay that we never were offering, (with) six months interest-free. Plus, it’s a lucrative program for us on the

Adding a Chabill’s Tirebranded credit card from CFNA, the bank owned by Bridgestone Americas Inc., has “been an absolute difference maker for us,” says Beth Barron.

backside. It’s been an absolute difference maker for us.”

The card now serves as a customer loyalty card. First-time users can receive either $50 off a set of tires, or 10% off service work.

The service discount is available in perpetuity, as is a $10 coupon on every oil change. There are additional seasonal rebates that apply, too.

The calculation on the cumulative price of those discounts is “staggering,” but Barron says it pays off with repeat customer trafﬁc.

“Every incentive we do in our company is around that card, and our gross proﬁ t percentage has grown and our overall sales has grown,” Barron says.

In the company’s Morgan City store, Manager Heather Guarisco and her team ring up 52% of total retail sales on the Chabill’s Tire card. “And she’s the number one store in this company when it comes to proﬁ t percentage.”

Tire Dealer of the Year

“We still have tires in our warehouses that we get from NTW just because I don’t always trust them to have my A-plus movers, because they’re not going to have everything all the time. So I do hold A-plus movers in our warehouse just in case.

“We have the Bridgestone/Firestone inventory. We do some truck tire business (and hold inventory of those tires).

We’re a member of ITDG (Independent Tire Dealers Group LLC) and so there are some programs — we’re on the RoadX program,” which is an exclusive line for ITDG members from Sailun Tire Americas that o ers passenger, light truck and truck tires. “So we’re going to have more stu in our warehouse than we have had previously.

A 20 GROUP EVANGELIST

It’s ‘a vital piece of what we do’

There are a few things — strategies — that Beth Barron believes have been essential to both her success, and the success of Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service. At the top of that list is being a member of a 20 group.

“I love 20 groups because it allows me to measure myself against the best of the best in the industry. In my opinion, the people in 20 groups want to be better operators. They want to have new ideas and learn from each other. I know I don’t have all the answers,” she says. “I’ve had some of the best mentors in this industry — some are retired now — from my older 20 groups.”

For those unfamiliar, 20 groups are so named because they’re a group of 20 businesses who are all operating in the same industry, but they don’t compete in the same markets. Groups are led by a facilitator and members share their ﬁnancials every month so they can see how their businesses measure up against others. During their in-person meetings, members share both problems and solutions.

Barron is a member of the 20 group managed by Randy O’Connor and Dealer to Dealer Development Group. She joined her ﬁrst 20 group more than a decade ago, but settled into her current group about 10 years ago. She considers it “a vital piece of what we do.

“I don’t understand why everyone is not in a 20 group,” she says.

Members sign non-disclosure agreements and then openly share their ﬁnancials. “So you really know where you stand and if you’re reaching the numbers you should be reaching. And, you have the ability to talk to the people who are reaching those numbers and try to ﬁgure out what they’re doing different.”

Another hallmark of Barron’s 20 group is that each member takes a turn in hosting

the group. So when you’re the host, that also means the group visits one of your stores. Members break up into smaller teams, grade the store and issue a report card. It’s a lengthy, half-day process.

“We hold ourselves to a very high standard when it comes to what a 20 group store should look like, and how it should operate,” she says. Grading stores on that standard has helped Barron transform the ﬂ oor plan of Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service locations.

She’s learning marketing lessons along the way, and beeﬁ ng up formal policies and procedures, but her greatest takeaway is “how important the people of our business are, and how to improve the relationships that we have with the people that work for us.” That has led to changes in everything from commission programs to social events for employees so the entire Chabill’s workforce is connected by a common bond no matter if employees work in the stores, warehouses or corporate ofﬁ ce.

Really, the people-related benefits are two-fold.

Group members swap texts and phone calls regularly.

“There are five or six members in there that when things get bad, they’re the ones that I go to,” she says. When numbers are off and tire units are down unexpectedly, she’ll reach out and see what others are seeing. If she ﬁ nds out that others in her group aren’t seeing the same trends, she knows she has a real problem on her hands.

“The relationships are the biggest piece. I can go to them with any problem or question and I know that I’ll get an answer and I’ll get a direction that works for us,” she says.

“But that NTW piece is important. It really changed the way we do business and I think for the better.

“My dad used to say, ‘Don’t buy a tire from a wholesaler, no matter what wholesaler. You sell what we have.’ And that was so much to monitor and try to stay on top of, because we never had everything. And with more SKU proliferation and with more brand proliferation — this is how manufacturers have decided to go to market. ey really want to push as much product through those wholesalers as they possibly can.”

Her theory is that tire manufacturers don’t want to service an account like hers, because from their perspective, Chabill’s is a low-volume customer. “ ey want to sell to people that are going to buy a million tires a year,” she says. “ ey can’t give the service to an account like Chabill’s. But to NTW, Chabill’s is a huge account. ey’re going to do everything they possibly can do to get me the tires that I need.

‘I love 20 groups because it allows me to measure myself against the best of the best in the industry.’

Beth Barron, CEO, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service

“It’s been a huge change in the way we go to business, but I think it’s been a pro table change. I think we’re able to get the customer what they want. It doesn’t have to be we sell them what we have. We can sell them anything — anything in NTW’s portfolio (and) anything in TireHub’s portfolio for that matter.

“The manufacturers have made the decision and it makes sense for them to push as much product through those wholesalers as they can, in my opinion.”

SATURDAY SHUTDOWN

For decades, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service had been open for a half-day on Saturdays. But amid all the chaos of 2020, Barron says she noticed a few things about that Saturday business.

CONGRATULATIONS BETH BARRON

2024 MTD

TIRE DEALER OF THE YEAR

Pirelli is honored to stand alongside Chabill’s Tire and Auto Service as one of Beth’s trusted suppliers. Congratulations on this well-deserved achievement!

Tire Dealer of the Year

“More complaints came in on Saturday because we worked half crews,” she says. “There were more waiters on Saturday because people were off work” and they added tire and automotive service work to their weekend errands.

She saw two options: open every store for a full day of work on Saturdays and add personnel to fully staff every location for six days a week, or close for a two-day weekend. She called a staff meeting with her 18 store managers.

“I think they all thought I was going to tell them that I was selling the business,” she says. After all, she had only taken over leadership of the business the year prior, shortly before her father died.

She told the managers that the stores would close on Saturdays, but there was a catch. “‘You’ve got to make the same amount of money you’re making now. You’ve got to make that same amount during five workdays. We’re going to see if we can’t make this thing rock in five days.’”

It was the first executive decision and change she made that she knew her father never would have even considered. But she had reviewed the numbers and considered the options. She was confident it could work.

The Monday through Friday workdays were extended by a half-hour with full staffing scheduled from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Russ Disalvo and Gwen Naquin, the manager and service advisor at a store in Houma, review the work orders that still need attention before the close of a work day. The summer heat in the Gulf brings with it the busiest season for Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service.

Photo: MTD

Barron gave her managers one year — until December 2021 — to hit the mark. If they didn’t, stores would reopen on Saturdays, but for a full day of work.

“It was the right decision,” she says, now four years later, adding that half of her closest friends and peers who own tire dealerships are still open on Saturdays while the rest are no longer open that day.

“Our business is better than it’s ever been. Since COVID, I keep waiting for business to fall off and it never has. They just keep doing more and more and more in those five days a week. They’re doing what I’m asking them to do.

“Our managers have been with us for lots and lots of years, so they understood the call and they answered the call and it was such a huge relief not to have to be worried about Saturday. It’s just wonderful and it’s one of the reasons why I probably will never sell this business because there’s nobody who wants to buy this business that isn’t going to be open on Saturdays. It’s the people who make this business and those people will be unhappy.”

A LOCALIZED COMMERCIAL APPROACH

Eric Roundtree has worked at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service since 1988. He was working for his cousin at a service station — pumping gas and turning wrenches — but his cousin lost the lease, so Roundtree needed to find work.

Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service has 18 retail stores in Southern Louisiana. Overall, the company’s sales are split 50-50 between tires and service. CEO Beth Barron says the company excels in the retail space with the work of technicians like Nicholas

Chabill’s has been dedicated to delivering the highest quality products and service to the Louisiana market for over 50 years, exemplified by your core values and Customer Bill of Rights. You and your organization are an inspiration to the entire tire industry. Michelin is honored to be your partner and looks forward to celebrating continued future success with your organization.

Michelin Congratulates

Barron

over 50 years of service in the Tire Industry.

Housden, pictured.

Tire Dealer of the Year

JOINING THE FAMILY, AND THE BUSINESS

Barrons take in a teen in need

At age 30, Bradley Schefferstein has been an employee of Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service almost half his life. He started working in the warehouse loading tires when he was 16.

But Chabill’s CEO Beth Barron is much more than just his boss. She’s been a mothering ﬁgure since he was a teenager.

Schefferstein’s parents split up when he was 13, and he and his twin brother Brandon were given a choice — to move out of state with their mother, or remain in Louisiana with their father, who was older and in poor health. Schefferstein opted to stay with his dad.

“I never once questioned taking him in. Never once. It really was his choice,” Barron says. “I offered him a place to stay because he wanted to be with his friends and graduate from the school he’d gone to.”

Bradley Schefferstein moved into Carey and Beth Barron’s house as a teenager after his father died. They’ve remained his rock, and today’s he’s a successful store manager for Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service who will eventually help lead the company into the future.

Over time Schefferstein got to know Barron and her family. He was good friends with one of their nephews, and he was also in the same high school class as their daughter, Amanda, though the two weren’t in the same social circles. The Barrons were aware that Schefferstein’s elderly father was ill and that his mother had remarried and moved to Texas. Schefferstein was 16 and a high school sophomore when his dad died.

Barron says she couldn’t stand by idly. “I knew that child was in need,” Barron says. She told him that if he needed a place to live, he could move in with her family.

She made the same offer to his brother, though he opted to move to Texas with his mom.

Schefferstein took her up on the offer, and today can see how clearly that decision changed the trajectory of his life. He ﬁ nished high school and kept working at the Chabill’s Tire warehouse. He had no interest in attending college — though he says the Barrons offered to send him. Instead, after high school he became a full-time Chabill’s Tire employee. His first full-time job was as a general service technician, and then he moved to the front counter to work as a service advisor. Six months later, at age 19, he was promoted to manager of the company’s smallest store. After a year there, he was promoted to manage the hometown store in Morgan City and made improvements there over a five-year span. He’s spent the last six years as manager of the Thibodaux location, and has grown it into a $3 million store, the highest sales volume location in the company.

“When he went into that store, we were convinced that store was topped out. It probably was doing about $1.6 million in sales. He started growing it right away,” Barron says.

He’s won the company’s top awards along the way, but now sees that one of his biggest achievements is his skill in molding new employees. “I can’t do it every time, but a lot of the time I can get them to fall into our system and participate in all the things that we require of an employee … and hold them to that standard.”

He thrives on systems and processes and believes strategies in the front of the store also aid the work fl ow in the service bays in the back. Each technician has his or her own designated hook, and tickets are assigned to specifi c technicians and scheduled in a precise order. “I feel like I’m really good at fi nding people’s strengths and their weaknesses and playing into their strengths,” Schefferstein says.

Earlier in his career he had an opportunity to leave, and talked that over with Barron, who convinced him to stay. She remembers telling him, “We own this business. It’s our family business. You’re part of our family and you’ll have a place. He decided to stay. I’m glad he did, because he will be an integral part of what this company becomes down the road.”

Schefferstein says, “I’m just happy to be part of it.” He’s watched the company evolve and says in the last 10 years especially it “is just amazing how much growth we’ve had.”

He gives Barron the credit for leading that success, and for changing his life.

“Beth swooped in … and we talk about this now, we didn’t realize what it would turn into (or) how close we would be (or) that the relationship would maintain and be as strong as it is now. I look to (Beth and Carey Barron) as my true guardians. I call them for anything that you would call a mother or father for.”

But the family feeling involves the entire extended family who also embraced Schefferstein as a teen, and today they extend that embrace to his wife Amber and their two young children. They are part of holiday and birthday celebrations, as well as vacations. The only sticking point is that Patrick Barron, the youngest of the Barron kids, works as a service advisor in Schefferstein’s store — and the two can’t be gone at the same time. That means they split family vacations in half so each one can spend time with the rest of the family.

“I always tell my wife … without them, we don’t really have anything,” he says. “We don’t have this life that we live right now. I’m very invested with this family, and with this company.”

Photo: MTD

Tire Dealer of the Year

Chabill’s Tire had just opened a store in Thibodaux and the 27-year-old Roundtree decided to seek a job there. On his application, he noted that he had experience as “a petroleum transfer engineer.” The Thibodaux store manager liked that little bit of creativity and it earned him an interview and ultimately a job.

Roundtree’s career began in the service bay and he eventually became a service manager. “I loved it,” he says. When another store was struggling, Gowland sent Roundtree there to assist and see if he could spot the problem.

It was in plain sight, he says: the manager kept Budweisers under the front counter.

“I had to make that difficult call to Mr. Charley. He was so good about it. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll be there this afternoon.’” Gowland came to the store, fired the manager and suddenly Roundtree had a store to manage.

The experienced, older staff didn’t want to listen to the young guy who they felt had ratted out their previous boss, so Roundtree had to start over with an entirely new crew. But over time, the store became a top performer.

“We really turned that store into a money maker,” he says. It was so successful that Gowland tasked Roundtree with finding property for a second store in Houma.

Roundtree continued to move up the ranks, from store manager to district manager and then into the company’s commercial business. Today he is the vice president of commercial sales at Chabill’s Tire and he occupies Gowland’s former office. Both men have been inducted into the Louisiana Tire & Automotive Service Association’s Hall of Fame.

He says one thing has been drilled into him in his decades with Chabill’s Tire. “The main thing is taking care of the customer. Everything else will work out.

BETH BARRON, CEO

“And that’s what Mr. Charley was great about. He would call me in the afternoon sometimes to go over some of the decisions I made — on pricing, or ‘Why did you do this? Why did you do that?’

“At the time, I didn’t really know why he was doing that, but he was making me learn the business. You’ve got to also make money on the back end. You can’t give everything away. He really brought me a lot of good with that.”

Barron says commercial customers have been an important part of the Chabill’s Tire’s business since day one. She relies on Roundtree to oversee that work, which adds up to 12% of the company’s overall sales.

Chabill’s Tire operates four service trucks and Roundtree says the bulk of that commercial business is tied to the region’s oil and gas industry.

“It’s mostly oil field companies, pipeyard or shipyard — everything is around oil and gas,” he says.

Port Fourchon is a critical driver for business.“I would have to probably lay off one or two guys if it wasn’t for that port,” says Roundtree.

Chabill’s Tire’s commercial strategy doesn’t include aroundthe-clock emergency roadside service for the typical over-the-road truck fleet customer. But Roundtree says forklift tire service is a big piece of the dealership’s commercial pie.

“We do a lot of forklifts. We do solid rubber tires. We go on site and do them, which is a good money producer for us. Everybody around here has a forklift in their warehouse and I’ve got good relationships with the forklift dealers and some of the rental companies.”

Bradley Schefferstein, left, and Patrick Barron, right, are among the next generation of the Barron family who will eventually lead the company. Today, these two work side-by-side in Thibodaux, while other family members work as a technician, in IT, and at the corporate office.

Photo: MTD

CONGRATULATIONS

2024 MTD TIRE DEALER OF THE YEAR BETH BARRON

Thank you, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service, for being a valued partner and for your dedication to excellence in South Louisiana. As a family-owned and operated business with over 50 years of service, your commitment to quality and customer satisfaction has made you a trusted name across the region.

Congratulations on being named Tire Dealer of the Year—we’re proud to be part of your journey!

Pictured: Beth Barron, CEO of Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service with Isra Thames, NAPA Auto Parts

Tire Dealer of the Year

HOW TO RETAIN YOUNG WORKERS

Chabill’s Tire ﬁ nds stability with young management

Charlie Barron considers himself a “late millennial.” He was born in 1996 and has grown up with video games, technology and social media. He’s now vice president of technology and is part of the third generation of his family to work at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service.

He’s well aware of the national trends when it comes to staffing needs and generations of young people who were never introduced to automotive, or any other trades for that matter.

Amidst all the negative talk, he noticed a trend in the Chabill’s Tire workforce. In the stores that are run by younger managers, there’s less turnover amongst the young staff members — even in the entry level general service tech (GST) roles.

gallon, or a buck-50, and you’ve got kids who have only known it to be over $3 a gallon their whole life.”

Those life experiences and perspectives add up, even if only in conversation.

Manager Russ Disalvo talks through a brake service job with Anastasia Dukes, a general service technician at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service. The tire dealership has noticed a trend that its young managers experience less turnover among their youngest staff members.

Photo: MTD

It can help a young employee feel seen and think they “can be more like themselves because they’re relating to someone and communicating with someone who gets it.”

Roundtree is o en in a truck handling a service call himself, especially recently as the company is searching to ll an open spot on its commercial roster. In the summertime heat, it’s an especially grueling job. In early-August, daytime temperatures in Southern Louisiana reached the mid-90s and with the humidity, daily heat warnings were around 115 degrees.

‘I wouldn’t ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do.’

Eric Roundtree, vice president of commercial sales, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service

Service trucks are out tted with water and coolers “and we instruct them to take breaks — to shut the job down, go sit in your truck, start it up, cool o — whatever you’ve got to do.”

He looked at Bradley Schefferstein’s store as an example.

Schefferstein is 30 years old and manages a team of eight people. “The average age in his shop is very young — 30, maybe,” Charlie Barron says.

He happened to notice the trend because some of his work is related to job listings and ﬁ lling holes where the business is short-handed.

“The place we have turnover is the GST position or the service advisor position, which is typically (ﬁlled) by younger people. When I looked at the managers, it was the younger managers who were having the least turnover. They were holding onto GSTs for three to ﬁ ve years and having GSTs (move up) into technicians.”

Charlie Barron notes, “It’s not that the older generation is doing anything wrong, but there’s obviously an afﬁnity of people coming out of high school falling in line behind someone who is closer in age to them.

“We have kids who work for us who don’t remember September 11th. You’ve got people that remember the way things were done when gas was two bucks a

Charlie Barron says this realization has given him some hope, though it’s not a quick or automatic solution to replace the experienced technicians who are leaving and retiring from the industry.

“We really need to be hungry for new talent because if we have young talent come up through our ranks, that’s just going to allow even younger talent to come up and ﬂourish,” he says.

“We have people who are ﬁ ve years or less to retirement in a handful of our stores. What are we doing to replace those people? Young people aren’t just walking in and saying, ‘I want to work on cars.’ They can’t afford to go to trade schools, so we’ve done a ton of work in trying to get young people trained up (and) to show them the light of how much money they can make working on cars, and show you don’t have to work offshore and in the oil and gas industry which you traditionally had to do in Southern Louisiana. You can work on cars and go home to your wife and kid at 5 o’clock and have your weekends to yourself. All of those things mean a lot to young people.”

He and Tony Braud, an outside salesperson, also join the crew members on service calls. “I wouldn’t ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do,” says Roundtree. Chabill’s Tire funnels the bulk of its commercial tire service into three stores — ibodaux, Matthews and the Houma store on Grand Caillou Road. Some commercial work is also performed inside the dealership’s Morgan City warehouse.

Braud says the company’s service trucks work with commercial customers within 20 miles of each of those locations. He and Roundtree arrange for what work is done where and they coordinate with each store manager to ensure the tires are ordered and the technicians are available to complete those tickets.

Barron says the commercial business is a nice complement to the retail side of Chabill’s Tire, but she’s not looking to expand the company’s overall commercial business. “We have a pretty nice footprint and book of business in this area. But generally, we’re very localized.”

There’s so much competition for the traditional truck road service calls, whether it’s from Columbia, Miss.-based Southern Tire Mart LLC or the likes of Goodyear Commercial Tire & Service Centers, that Barron says she’s not interested in adding service trucks to cover all of Southern Louisiana.

Tire Dealer of the Year

Chabill’s Tire used to have a commercial truck in Lafayette. “I just felt like we were spinning our wheels and so I made that decision to pull the truck out of there and say we’re just not going to do that anymore,” she says. “There are a couple

of customers over there so Eric will send a guy from (Morgan City) over there.

“Taking care of retail is a different mindset and I’m very passionate about retail. That’s why we don’t wholesale. I am very passionate about our retail business. I think that’s what we’re the best at.

“Eric knows his commercial (customers) and he’s growing his commercial (business) in that little area. But to run trucks in Lafayette or Baton Rouge — it’s just too much and it’s so hard. You want to talk about the hardest job to fill? It’s road service. They’re on their own a lot and they’re in the elements. These guys are on the side of the road in the blazing sun or the rain or cold, if it happens to get cold here. It’s a hard job to fill. That’s one of the reasons I’ve had no interest in really growing the (commercial) business outside of the areas we already service.”

That’s not to say she dismisses commercial tire sales as being an important part of the company’s overall profile. Roundtree and his team have a “full book of business” and “it is a huge, viable part” of Chabill’s success, Barron says.

Beth Barron, CEO

Providing thorough vehicle inspections has been a key to driving profitability at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service, says CEO Beth Barron. Duane Roy Jr. handles a mount and balance ticket for a customer.

Photo: MTD

“We’re dedicated to keep that business and grow that business and there’s plenty of business still to be had. It’s a very profitable piece of the business.”

CAREFUL EXPANSION

Barron’s focus on retail means she is always on the hunt for new stores — or acquisition options — to expand. At the same time, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service has never sought rapid new store openings. Pragmatism has been the name of the game.

For decades, the dealership’s stores were only located in small-town markets. It wasn’t until the late-1990s that Chabill’s Tire decided to move into Lafayette, a city with more than 100,000 people.

“That was a huge jump because Lafayette (is) a big town for us,” she says. The company opened a pair of stores in that market and by 2012 Chabill’s Tire was ready to tackle another metro area when it moved into Baton Rouge.

acquisitions, all of our expansion has been in Baton Rouge,” says Barron. But that doesn’t mean it was an easy transition,

‘My biggest focus is on the stores we have and doing more volume out of those stores.’

Beth Barron, CEO, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service

because at the time Barron said Chabill’s Tire was unfamiliar with the Baton Rouge area, which has since turned out to be a good market for the dealership.

Chabill’s Tire now has nine stores in the greater Baton Rouge area, and the new market has diversified the company’s overall economy. “It made our business a

slowed down as much as I haven’t found a spot to build a store that I feel passionate about,” she says. “My fear is to spend millions to buy a piece of property and build a store that doesn’t make this company any money. I’ve been very careful about where we’re going to expand.”

In addition, higher costs for land and construction lead to “a rent factor that is just so difficult to overcome. I’m not going to say we’re going to have five more stores in three years. I don’t see our growth being that quick unless somebody comes up and wants to sell their business and it drops in my lap.”

“Do I want more locations? Absolutely,” says Barron. “But I want them to be in the right place at the right price and right now, that’s a little difficult because things are really expensive. I’m always looking for a building that can be remodeled into a

Beth Barron

Tire Dealer of the Year

Dillon Brown, a service advisor at a Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service store in Houma, checks the air pressure and condition of a customer’s leaky tire. A nail was the culprit, and it was in a spot where tire replacement was the only option.

Photo: MTD

just as critical. Sometimes that requires taking a step back, she says. “I’m not afraid to close stores if I think they’re losers. I don’t have that much pride.

“My dad hated to close stores. He saw it as a failure. I don’t. (Sometimes) it’s the wrong place, the wrong people, the wrong customer base. It’s not our business. We wouldn’t have 18 stores making a ton of money and one store not making money (if it was our business model.) It has nothing to do with Chabill’s.

“It has to do with either we picked a loser of a location, we can’t nd the right people or we don’t have enough customers. I never look at it as a business failure. I know our model works when we have the right people to run it. e people are so important.”

Chabill’s Tire does not hire store managers. e company trains people from within and promotes them to manager. Every prospective manager spends time working the front counter as a service advisor first. And in most cases, the company’s managers are working in the communities they call home.

ere’s no perfect timeline for grooming someone into that managerial role, says Barron. Some people can do it in three to four months, while others need three or four years. “I really think it’s about the person.”

Another factor is that in Southern Louisiana, people like to stick close to home. at means a manager might not be willing to uproot and move to an unfamiliar market.

SOLD: SNOW CHAINS IN LOUISIANA

Eric Roundtree has the distinction of what might be the most unusual sale in the history of Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service.

Roundtree, the vice president of commercial sales, took a call from the local power company. Their service technicians often respond to calls in other states and regions of the country when there are weather disasters.

Louisianians are well versed in hurricanes, but sometimes the calls come after or in anticipation of ice storms.

“They were going up north, and the guy called me wanting to buy snow chains,” Roundtree said. The gentleman ﬁ gured it would be more cost effective to buy them up front rather than possibly have to purchase them after arriving in the area when they might be harder to ﬁ nd, or more expensive to purchase.

“I sold a few thousand dollars (worth) of snow chains.”

“In South Louisiana, we’re about home,” says Barron. “I think that’s part of our culture. So many of these managers are people who have been born and raised in the areas they’re working. ey’re not implants. ey didn’t come from Texas. ey didn’t come from Mississippi. ey’re born and raised (here). at’s where they want to work.”

FOCUSING ON PROFIT

Some tire dealers might measure their business growth primarily by the opening of shiny new stores, but Barron looks at plenty of other metrics.

Yet there is one number she doesn’t study: total sales.

“I care about how much money we make at the end. Everybody’s like, ‘How much sales do you do?’ I have no idea. Sales is not a number I pay any attention to.”

For the record, Chabill’s Tire is on track to record sales in 2024 that are 8% higher than 2023.

“For me, it’s about pro t and pro t percentage,” says Barron. “ en it’s about managing the expenses in that store and then my hard work that is the back-end money. And it all comes down to where we end with that pro t. If we’re not making any money, why are we doing this?”

It’s another lesson she learned from her dad. “You could do $20 million in sales and not make a dime. If your gross pro t percentage is at 40 when it really should be 55, who cares how much sales you’re doing because you’re leaving all that money on the table.”

On a daily basis, Barron is tracking tire units, gross pro t and gross pro t percentage. ( e company’s gross pro t through June was at 55.5%.) When the monthly P&L statement is ready, her eyes go straight to net pro t. rough the rst half of 2024, Chabill’s net pro t has increased 12% year-overyear. at number surprises her. “I didn’t think we’d have a better year than last year,” says Barron.

C o n g r a t u l a t i o n s

f r o m y o u r f r i e n d s a t A m e r i c a n O m n i T r a d i n g !

B e t h B a r r o n , C E O o f C h a b i l l ' s T i r e & A u t o

Tire Dealer of the Year

Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service presents its customers with a “customer bill of rights” as part of its “pledge that your business with us is subject to the highest level of service from everyone in our company.”

She had been prepping to tell her team that 2024 would be a year to “tighten our belts” and watch and wait on what was happening with the economy and in ation. “I just didn’t know what this year would hold. People don’t have as much money to spend. I felt like it was going to be a tough year.”

BETH

Success in these economic conditions underscores the importance of the programs and back-end money she’s able to secure from vendors and the business’ membership in ITDG. “All of that money ows into the bottom (line) of the P&L.”

While she’s a hawk about those gures, Barron is not one who is eager to create budgets and forecasts for the years to come.

“I hate budgets and I hate projections. One of the reasons I don’t like budgets is because I think it puts money in buckets that I don’t necessarily need (to place) in buckets. My philosophy in running this business from a cost perspective is we only spend the money we have to spend.”

Stores have a limit of what they can spend before they rst have to clear the purchase with her husband, Carey, the dealership’s director of operations.

“All the big purchasing decisions that we make are made here (at the corporate o ce),” says Barron. “I want to take that load o them. ey don’t deal with any accounting. ey don’t pay any bills. ey don’t collect any money. ey’re balancing their cash drawer and they’re sending their invoices that need to be paid here.”

She sees a central clearinghouse as a good control arm. If the company buys a part, there’s documentation to show it was sold to a customer. When the company needs to buy printer paper, the central o ce has the resources to check prices from multiple vendors. When it comes time to purchase a piece of shop equipment in one store, it’s worthwhile to research and negotiate the options.

“Everybody understands how we do business,” says Barron. “We don’t buy from people just because we like them. We buy from people because we like you and you give us a good price.” e same central clearinghouse approach applies to setting goals for stores. Barron doesn’t expect store managers to develop those objectives.

Photo: MTD

BETH BARRON CONGRATULATIONS

FROM THE TEAM AT

Tire Dealer of the Year

Day-to-day, Barron’s managers focus on their stores’ operations: what the vehicles in their service bays need, what they need to communicate to customers and what their employees need in order to make the sale and get the work done. That’s their mental load from the moment the store opens in the morning until the last bay door is closed. “That’s how their brain works and they’re astoundingly great at it,” she says.

That’s also why if managers are asked, “‘What do you think your unit goal should be next year?’ they’d have no idea. They don’t think that way. They go to work and do the best they can every single day. We put goals in front of them so they understand expectations.”

Five years ago, she conducted an exercise and asked her store managers to set key metric goals. “It was like torture for them

Brian Garrows performs an alignment on a GMC Sierra 2500 HD pickup. Trucks and SUVs dominate the car parc in Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service’s territory.

Photo: MTD

even lower the goal because (I see) things have changed.”

Some may view this store-focused mentality as a lack of professional development. Barron disagrees. “We are developing them in the role that they’re in now. They’re becoming better and better managers. They’re growing their location. They’re managing more people. They’re becoming better and developing what they’re doing.”

Plus, Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service is a family owned tire dealership. The third generation of the family is learning the ropes and members are working their way up to eventually take her role and that of the others on the executive team. There aren’t endless positions for store managers to move into.

“I don’t want to start developing somebody and then not have anywhere to put them.”

WORLD-CLASS CUSTOMER SERVICE

Martin Michel didn’t have that problem when he joined Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service in November 1999. He received his first promotion after just four days on the job.

Michel was young when he started working in the tire industry in 1978. Twenty-plus years later, he moved back home to Houma and was looking for a job. He was hired as a salesman at one of the Chabill’s Tire Houma stores at a wage of $8 an hour.

Technicians like Beau Ordoyne and all employees at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service have one thing in common, says Martin Michel, vice president of retail sales and customer service. “They want to help.”

Photo: MTD

Tire Dealer of the Year

THE NON-NEGOTIABLES

Managers create a wheel-off policy

It might have been close to 20 years ago, but one time Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service had a wheel come off a vehicle. The company — the customer — and everyone else on the road that day, was incredibly fortunate because no one was injured.

Charley Gowland didn’t want that to ever happen again.

“Mr. Charley always felt like the one thing we did that he lost sleep over at night was putting wheels back on, because it’s so simple, but it can lead to somebody getting hurt,” recalls Carey Barron, director of operations.

When that happened, the company’s store managers were called into a meeting. They were locked in the board room and given 30 minutes to come up with a solution. And, they had to establish the consequences for anyone who doesn’t follow the policy.

Carey Barron says they needed a little extra time, but later emerged with a policy that stands today. In the shop, it’s referred to as double torque.

When a wheel is installed, a torque limiter will be used, and it will be run up to 55 pounds. After that, every lug nut is hand tightened by a technician while another person — usually the store manager or service advisor — watches. That observer has to sign off on the work order that it was done according to the process. (Only in rare cases where a store is short-staffed can a second technician serve as the witness. But even then, that technician has to sign the work order.)

Technicians at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service must have a second person observe and sign off on the torquing of every wheel. Manager Mike Cohen in Houma says the policy, which is simply known as “double torque,” has been around since the company had half as many stores as it does now.

Photo: MTD

“The consequences are, if a wheel comes off and that policy was not followed, both people lose their jobs immediately,” Carey Barron says.

It’s been ﬁve years since that happened. It cost the technician and a manager who had worked for the company for a dozen years their jobs.

“That’s a non-negotiable,” he says.

And there are others. One is that employees are expected to arrive to work on time.

“It’s been a big issue, especially with younger people,” Carey Barron says. “I think while it’s a non-negotiable for most of us, some of the managers would rather have a bad employee than no employee, and they don’t understand how that affects the dynamic for everybody.”

He’s sent two members of his immediate family home unpaid because they couldn’t get to work on time.

“We work hard for the image that we have, (and) for people to understand that we’re trying to do the right things for the right reasons,” he says. The easiest job we give anybody that works here is to get to work on time.”

The non-negotiables are designed to get every location, and every employee, on the same page. He wants store managers to lay out those expectations any time a new employee joins the team.

“This is what I expect from you. This is the standard you’re going to be held to. Then, when you have to have the conversation (about a problem), it’s not a surprise.”

Four days later, the company moved him about 35 miles to the west to its Morgan City store, because the manager there wanted to move back home to Houma. Michel was promoted to store manager.

“I just wanted in the door,” he says. “I gured I could jump o any building and nd a way to land on my feet.”

A few years later, as Chabill’s Tire was looking to open multiple stores, Michel was tasked with helping to open the doors and build the sta s needed at each location. He oated from one opening to the next. It was hard work, and for a while, he thought it was too hard and that “I’m obviously not good enough to work here.

“What you learn — a er you get through that — is when you are pressed into these situations and you’re not comfortable, the other side of that is growth,” he says. “I’ve seen that my whole career here. It’s not about being comfortable. It’s not about being easy. It’s about being great. It’s about having a really good work culture.”

Michel is now the vice president of retail sales and customer service at Chabill’s Tire. If there’s an issue and it a ects or involves a customer, Michel is in charge of resolving it. Internally, some call him the dealership’s “customer whisperer.”

He’s constantly moving throughout the company’s 18 retail locations. He touches base with every store manager every single day.

A decade ago, Michel would have described Chabill’s Tire as “totally old school.” But the times have changed and the company has transformed with it. “We were not into online pricing,” he says. Now the company has an employee dedicated to managing online sales and online service appointments, as well as another employee who handles all incoming phone calls of customers seeking tire quotes. Waiting rooms have been updated so customers can work on their laptops. And Michel says younger members of the Chabill’s Tire team continue to push for more updates.

But store managers are still focused on the basics, even while they earn more business on every ticket. “Every single person has one thing in common in this company: they’re helpful people,” says Michel. “ ey want to help.”

And that’s essential if they want to live up to the dealership’s motto and hashtag: World Class Customer Service #WCCC. In searching for employees capable of tting the Chabill’s Tire mold, it boils

CONGRATULATIONS BETH BARRON

of Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service

Modern Tire Dealer’s 2024 Tire Dealer of the Year

Thank you for your partnership with ITDG and your continued support of independent dealers.

Tire Dealer of the Year

2 WORDS

MTD asked members of the Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service team to describe CEO Beth Barron in a couple of words. For some, two words just wasn’t enough.

Passionate. Knowledgeable.

— Mike Cohen, store manager

Family-oriented. Organized. Knowledgeable. Creative.

— Tony Braud, outside salesperson

down to some core characteristics, says Michel. “Can you have a regular conversation with this person? Do they make sense? What’s the vibe in the room when you talk to this person? Do you think that they’re going to have good aptitude?”

GROWING WITH DATA

People skills matter, but Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service also is investing in tools to help its team measure and track every important metric.

Inspiring. Accountable.

— Charlie Barron, vice president of technology

Great leader. Driven. Dedicated. Smart. Passionate. Supportive.

— Patrick Barron, service advisor

Passionate. Loyal. Trusting.

— Eric Roundtree, vice president of commercial sales

She’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Leader. Mother.

— Bradley Schefferstein, store manager

Tremendous visionary. Caring. Humble. Funny.

— Martin Michel, vice president of retail sales and customer service

Amazing. Proud.

— Carey Barron, director of operations

Professionally, she’s extremely driven and always looking for things we can do to improve the company. Even though she’s always working and her job can get stressful, you’ll never hear her complain. As a mom and grandma, she’s the most loving and caring person. She is very easy to talk to and gives great advice. I think the best thing about her is that she knows exactly when it’s time to stop playing the boss role and just be Mom.

— Amanda Michel, IT systems coordinator

Barron had narrowed her search for a data tool to three vendors in early 2021, just as her son, Charlie Barron, was rejoining the company. He had earned his master’s degree in analytics at Louisiana State University in 2020 and he initially went to work for a multi-national IT consulting company. He decided to return to the family business in February 2021. One of his rst tasks was to pick which of the analytics vendors would be best for Chabill’s Tire. He chose Phocas and a month later they launched the program in March 2021.

Barron says her son’s analytics expertise has enhanced the tool’s capabilities for her and the entire Chabill’s team. By adding payroll records, the company can measure e ciency rates. Information about tires sold helps Barron manage inventory and purchasing. It all comes together in an easy-to-read dashboard.

“It has put numbers at our ngertips that we never had at our ngertips,” she says, noting that the technology allows her team “to react to problems in stores or in particular operations that we were having to wait too long to respond to” previously. e dashboard shows everything from tire units sold and oil changes performed to the all-important pro tability numbers. “It’s where all of our data comes together.”

Store managers have access to their own metrics, but also that of other stores and company-wide reports. “It’s given visibility to the managers of what our expectations are and there’s no excuse,” says Barron. “ ey can’t say ‘I don’t know’ because the numbers are right there.

“ e people who work for me are the most important part of this machine. ere is no doubt about it. Giving them the tools that they need to be pro table — the tools they need to make their jobs easier — is vital.”

e dashboard has also helped Chabill’s Tire maximize its potential — and pro ts. It’s easy to track any metric with what was

2 2

Tire Dealer of the Year

recorded a month ago or a year ago. And now, with three-plus years of data available, the growth trends are obvious.

Here’s one example: Gross pro t per ticket at the dealership in March 2021 was

$158. at was from the rst month of data in Phocas. As of August 2024, that number had grown to $230.

“That’s a hard needle to push,” says Barron.

NO LONGER A NOVELTY

Leading and inspiring other women

She attributes much of that growth to a renewed focus on vehicle inspections and honing in on the inspection process. Chabill’s Tire is working to make even more gains in that category by testing a new digital inspection process at one of its stores. Barron is hopeful it’s a good tool with an e cient process that can be rolled out company-wide.

THE NEXT GENERATION

Beth Barron can clearly recall attending a tire industry event while in her 30s and being the only woman in the room. An older gentleman seated next to her asked if she was a secretary at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service.

She’s never forgotten that.

“I think for a while I was a novelty. I got picked for every board. Everybody wanted my opinion. I was passionate about the business (and) I wasn’t just in charge of advertising at this point. I really knew the business.

“I think I was chosen to do different things or go different places because I was a woman (in the industry), but I think they quickly learned they got more than they bargained for with me, because I’m not afraid. I’m very strong and conﬁdent about what my opinions are, and they’re not necessarily the opinions that a manufacturer or whoever may want.”

She continues to serve on boards, including with National Tire Wholesale (NTW) and the Independent Tire Dealers Group LLC (ITDG).

As time has passed, other women have joined the executive ranks, but they’re still outnumbered. Barron is the third woman honored as a Tire Dealer of the Year — but the other two were named alongside their husbands. Barron is the ﬁrst sole female executive to win the award.

“It is an honor to be the ﬁrst woman chosen,” she says. “I don’t want to downplay the part that Charlie (Barron) or Martin (Michel) or Eric (Roundtree) or any other people play in this business, but I’m the CEO. It’s my job to steer the ship and I’m proud of that.”

Beth Barron is the third woman honored as a Tire Dealer of the Year — two other women were named alongside their husbands. Barron is the ﬁ rst sole female tire dealership executive to win the award. She’s pictured with manager Heather Guarisco, who leads the company’s threetime store of the year.

She doesn’t think the tire industry naturally jumps out and attracts women. And she doesn’t believe that’s been an intentional act, but that “people make assumptions that women wouldn’t want to work in this industry.” And at ﬁrst glance, she says women might pass on tires.

Her husband Carey Barron thinks one reason Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service has been successful in recruiting women is because “women are more likely to go out and try something different.”

Barron also has heard her female employees talk about “they’re proud to say they work for a company that’s owned by a woman.”

Almost a third of the 18 Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service stores are managed by women, and double that number are working at the front counter. The company’s store of the year award has been won by the same store and manager, Heather Guarisco, three years in a row.

Four of the top eight performing stores in 2023 were led by women, Carey Barron says.

“Every time we look at the numbers and look at who’s accounting for the numbers — we’ve come a long way,” he says.

Like his mother, Charlie Barron sees lots of additional opportunities in that analytics dashboard. “I think it’s really ampli ed our business,” he says. “We have insight into the business we didn’t have before. In this industry, tires make the world go round, so you’re looking at are you up on tires or are you down on tires? Are you up on tire revenue or are you down? Are your margins good?”

But with so much focus on tires, he thinks other things can get overlooked. “Are we competitive on installation pricing and alignments? Can we see how many of those we’re doing each month and then factor in if we stay at (on pricing or) if we go up a buck or two? Where can we squeeze margin — and not to squeeze the customer — but what is our business worth?”

Charlie Barron is 27 and working as vice president of technology for the company. He’s eager to add a fresh perspective. He’s part of the next generation that will one day lead Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service. But for now, he and his siblings are learning the ropes while also exerting their expertise where it makes sense.

His job touches both operations and retail and it uctuates as needed. When another employee retired, he was handed the tasks tied to insurance. “Special projects is a big passion of mine.”

He’s a believer in the role of independents in the tire and automotive service space. He’s not a fan of private equity, though he does think as those players buy up more space in the tire market, it provides opportunity for companies like Chabill’s Tire.

“I think in general, it’s good for us because when they go and buy competitors that may or may not have been succeeding, they’re driving customers to us,” he says. “ e way people (who are) acquiring (conduct) business is not the way we do business. We’re very loyal to South Louisiana and I feel that loyalty is not felt with these big conglomerates. ey just drive customers to us. I feel like the backbone

of America is small businesses and family businesses and big private equity coming and just sapping all of that away is kind of destroying the fabric of America.

“We’re members of this community, we’re members of this state and we care about it and we hope that you want to spend money with us because we want to put it back into the community.”

There’s still work to be done before Charlie Barron and his siblings take on bigger roles at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service. Their parents want to get it right. In June 2023, Barron and her husband bought out the shares of the business that her siblings previously owned.

Charlie Barron likes that his family’s business is a bit unusual compared to others in the industry.

“We have a ton of women working for us in an industry that is not heavily influenced by women, but that’s because we have a leader who is a strong woman and it’s inspirational,” he says. “People like to work for people they can find inspiration in. Maybe they don’t know what my mom does or maybe they don’t know what I do (day-

to-day,) but they can see that we’re helping them to be successful. That inspires them to be even more successful and they inspire their teams to be even more successful.”

PAUL

Anastasia Dukes is a general service tech at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service. The tire dealership employs women at all stages of their career, from entry-level technician to the executive office.

Photo: MTD

Employee relations

Talent management

BEST PRACTICES FROM PAST TIRE DEALER OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERS

MTD staff By

Employee management can sometimes feel like an inexact science — but it doesn’t have to be. Some of the country’s biggest, most celebrated independent tire dealers have developed talent management strategies and philosophies that have proven to be extremely effective.

In this exclusive, several past MTD Tire Dealer of the Year Award winners share what works for them — and why.

OWNERSHIP MENTALITY

“Entrepreneurship is a tough road,” said Jim Duff, who along with his brother, Tommy Duff, own Columbia, Miss.-based Southern Tire Mart LLC. They were the recipients of MTD’s Tire Dealer of the Year Award in 2021.

“Some people naturally have” an entrepreneurial spirit, Tommy told MTD. “It’s innate to them. Some people learn it. And we find there can be a great mixture of both.”

The Duffs encourage their store managers to think like business owners, according to Tommy. “Our store managers are entrepreneurs. They know their pricing. They know their programs. They know their support structure.

“The big thing is they have backing, so they won’t fail financially,” Tommy explained. “They can concentrate on their people and customers. And as they progress, they make more money.

“We have store managers who make seven figures and I don’t know of other tire companies that can walk around saying that.”

“When we interview people, we’ll tell them, ‘This is what we expect of you and this is what you can expect of us,’” said Jim. “And I’ll ask, ‘Do you agree with this?’

“If we’re having a problem with someone, we’ll explain what the problem is and will ask, ‘Do you agree with us?’ And 99% of the time, they will say, ‘You’re right.’”

Southern Tire Mart does not offer employment contracts. “When a company has to make an employee sign an employment agreement, that’s not a good way to operate,” said Tommy.

“Is that the correct philosophy?” asked Jim. “I don’t know if it is or not. That’s just what we’ve always done. It’s worked for us.

“We’ve also been smart enough to say, ‘If something is not working well, we need to address it.’ People say, ‘If you have good

judgement and common sense, you’ll be successful.’ But I also think if you can’t self-analyze and realize that the problem might be me, then you’re in trouble.”

RISK AND REWARDS

“Our employees are the heartbeat of Wonderland Tire,” Jon Langerak, the company’s CEO and president and 2023 recipient of MTD’s Tire Dealer of the Year Award, told MTD last year. “They’re on the front lines every day, doing the work with a smile on their faces.”

Jon learned early in his career that it’s important to recognize employees and highlight their contributions.

Wonderland Tire has paid for employees who have hit their 20-year mark with the company to go on a vacation of their choosing, with their spouse or partner — anywhere in the world, with all expenses picked up by the dealership.

The idea, according to Jon, came from Rebecca Reed, Wonderland Tire’s marketing manager.

“She came from a family business, Reed’s Tire, and saw that we have many long-term employees. She said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to do something for people who’ve been with us for more than 20 years? Why not send them on a nice trip?’”

Dave Langerak, Jon’s brother and Wonderland Tire’s chief operating officer, agreed.

Jon and Dave show their appreciation in other ways. When fuel prices spiked several years ago, each Wonderland Tire employee received a $50 pre-paid gas card.

“Employees recognize it when you do things for them that you don’t have to do,” said Jon

and

“That was Jim DeVries’ idea,” Jon told MTD. (DeVries is Wonderland Tire’s chief financial officer.)

“Every Thanksgiving, (employees) get a $50 card to one of the supermarkets in the area.

“We take a portion of our profits each year and distribute that to our employees,” Jon told MTD.

“The vast majority of our employees also are on an incentive program. The tire business can be slow in January, February and March. The rest of the year, it ramps up. Summer can be a stressful time. It’s busy. It’s hot. With the incentive, during the summer months our employees can make double or triple what they can make in the winter months.”

Jon and Dave also make personal appearances at Wonderland

Jim and Tommy Duff, the owners of Southern Tire Mart LLC, encourage their store managers to think like business owners, according to Tommy (pictured on the right.) “Our store managers are entrepreneurs.”

Photo: Southern Tire Mart LLC

Langerak, CEO

president of Wonderland Tire Co. (center).

Photo: Wonderland Tire Co.

Employee relations

Tire’s stores. “When we had our first million-dollar month 12 years ago, we went to each location and grilled steaks for employees,” said Dave.

When Wonderland Tire achieved its first $3 million month, “we ended up going to every store and grilled steaks.”

“Employees recognize it when you do things for them that you don’t have to do,” said Jon.

‘IT’S THEIRS, TOO’

Bob Dunlap, chairman and CEO of Batesville, Miss.-based Dunlap & Kyle Co. Inc. and the 2022 Tire Dealer of the Year, told MTD he doesn’t understand all the stress involved with keeping good employees.

“We take care of them. We’ve got a Cadillac plan for hospitalization and insurance, a retirement plan and then they’re paid a lot of money on top of that.”

Open the door to more opportunities.

Continental door system components come ready-toinstall, right out of the box. We offer window lifts, motors, and assemblies as well as door lock actuators. Made in ISO Certified facilities, they provide exact OE fit, function, and performance for simplified installation and no comebacks.

Dunlap told MTD that a competitor once tried to hire one of his salespeople. The salesman laughed at the other company’s offer.

Dunlap said he will not get in the way of a driven salesperson. And he doesn’t believe in carving up a successful salesperson’s territory.

If a salesperson builds it up, he gets to keep it — even if there’s enough business to split the area in two.

“I respect it and protect it. I’m sitting here drinking coffee and they’re out there working. I’m not going to mess with it. I’d be stupid to do that.”

Over the years, Dunlap has rewarded some employees with a share of the business — often 5% of a specific warehouse. When a successful salesman said he wanted to retire, Dunlap didn’t want to lose him. He rewarded the salesman with a share. The man has said he’ll work as long as he lives. This generous spirit applies to more than the company’s sales team.

“As long as I’ve got money, it’s theirs, too,” said Dunlap. “If they work hard, they’re entitled to compensation. I think to not do that you only hurt yourself.”

WHO DRIVES THE BUS?

Chip Wood, chairman of Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tire Discounters Inc. and the 2020 Tire Dealer of the Year Award recipient, told MTD he believes that all successful companies share a common denominator: engaged, motivated employees who are focused on customer service.

“Our store managers drive the bus,” he said. “Being able to do everything we can for our staff will always be the most important task at hand.”

“As long as I’ve got

money, it’s theirs, too,” said Bob Dunlap, chairman and CEO of Dunlap & Kyle Co. Inc. (pictured, right), when referring to his employees. “If they work hard, they’re entitled to compensation. I think to not do that you only hurt yourself.”

Photo: Joey Brent

Employee relations

Photo: Steve Ziegelmeyer/ Ziegelmeyer Photography

Tire Discounters’ management team maintains an opendoor policy. “I try my best to always pick up the phone,” Wood explained. “I think it’s important for everybody to know we’re paying attention.”

He also is a firm believer in employee development.

“We have so much talent. Every tire technician is a potential service technician, a potential general manager, a potential regional manager and a potential CEO. All one has to do is have the desire and the drive. That’s it.”

COACHING THE TEAM

John McCarthy Jr., when named MTD’s Tire Dealer of the Year in 2019, said employees are the most valuable asset of his dealership, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-based McCarthy Tire Service Co. Inc.

“I can’t stress enough the importance of the team that we’ve built here — right down to the service techs and the people in the warehouse,” he told MTD.

“The way that I look at it, the people we work with make us different from anywhere else. They care. The hours they put in,

the quality of work they put in — they’re just great people. They make my job a lot easier.”

When interviewed by MTD in 2019, McCarthy never once referred to his people as working for him. He said that he works with them. “I’d love to not say (the word) ‘employees’ anymore. I just think it’s not the right characterization.”

An avid collage football fan, he relates his job to that of a coach. “I read something that said the average millennial has 12 jobs before the age of 35,”he said.

“We need to find ways to motivate people (and) offer them job clarity. Do they have a job description that they feel is important? They ask, ‘How do I fit in?’ They demand ongoing feedback.

“Before you were the principal and you had to crack the whip. Now you’re the coach and you give them enthusiasm and positive reinforcement for them to keep going. If you’re not keeping them engaged, you’re going to have issues.” ■

said John McCarthy Jr., president of McCarthy Tire Service Co. Inc. “They care. The hours they put in,

Photo: Michael Touey | Halibut Blue LLC

From micronized carnauba to the latest graphene and ceramic formulas, our full spectrum of BRIGHTLINE professional car appearance products has everything you need to make your customers’ cars – and your business – shine. So whether you run an automatic, self-serve or hand-wash and detail operation, make the smart choice with BRIGHTLINE.

Hugh Boeset and his technicians make sure that the alignment-to-ADAS service transition is seamless. “We go from an alignment directly into a calibration without any hiccups.”

‘The revenue is there’ ADAS SERVICE HAS BEEN A BOON FOR BOESET

Manges By

Tire dealers who aren’t offering advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) calibrations are missing out on extra revenue — and a few other things.

That’s the opinion of Hugh Boeset, who owns five Midas locations in the Chicago, Ill., area.

Two of those stores are generating significant, add-on income by providing ADAS calibrations, using vehicle alignments as an entry point.

“When I look at my best shop that’s doing ADAS, its revenue on alignments is up 52% versus the prior year” — all incremental earnings enabled by ADAS service, according to Boeset.

NEW TO ADAS

Boeset is relatively new to ADAS service. He installed his first ADAS calibration equipment at his Boling Brook, Ill., store in October 2023 and followed that by installing ADAS equipment at his Naperville, Ill., location a few months later.

“When I first started looking at offering this service in 2022, I believe less than 30% of vehicles had ADAS.”

Boeset has working relationships with several local body shops, some of which were starting to invest in ADAS calibration equipment at the time. As he observed their success, “I thought, ‘Maybe there’s something here that’s worth looking at?’”

He began shopping for ADAS equipment, initially looking at “portable units that you could move from bay to bay and shop to shop.”

He ultimately chose Autel’s MaxiSYS IA900WA Wheel Alignment and ADAS calibration system, which he describes as an “all-in-one” setup.

“I probably invested $35,000 to $36,000 per shop,” which he says was not much more than he would have paid for a new, standalone alignment machine at each. Technician training, which turned out to be less complex than Boeset expected, came next.

He discovered that ADAS calibration is a “step-by-step” process that doesn’t allow for

Photo: Hugh Boeset

Mike

deviation. All that’s required is a technician “who can follow directions consistently.”

Equipment and trained techs in place, Boeset then began marketing the service.

He started by talking with smaller body shops in his area that didn’t have “the wherewithal to do alignments and ADAS calibrations” — a process that continues today.

“We visit with them and educate them on opportunities to work with us. And through our CRM program, we communicate with our existing (retail) customers.

“We also do a lot of qualifying of customers when they come in for service,” he says. “We immediately identify which vehicles could require calibration.

“We tell them why it’s necessary and the fact we have the ability to do it.

“I think anybody who’s bought a vehicle in the last three years has a good grasp of what ADAS is and what it does, especially rear radar, adaptive cruise control — things that are safety-related.

“Consumers know they have ADAS. But they don’t necessarily grasp the relationship of ADAS to services like alignments.”

“You’re doing your customer a disservice if you aren’t” providing ADAS calibrations, says Hugh Boeset, who owns five Midas stores in the Chicago, Ill., area. Two of those locations offer ADAS service.

Boeset and his technicians make sure that the alignment-to-ADAS transition is seamless. “We go from an alignment directly into a calibration without any hiccups.”

The customer’s car “is already on the rack. It’s already set up.”

‘MORE STANDARDIZED’

ADAS service is here to stay, according to Boeset. “It’s an opportunity to provide a service that’s becoming more standardized on vehicles. The other thing is that it can be a very profitable service. The revenue is there.”

The ability to provide ADAS service also keeps business in-house.

“We want to be a one-stop shop for all of our customers’ needs.”

Another important benefit, he says, is the reassurance provided to customers that their vehicles are in safe working order, with ADAS engaged and ready to perform intended functions.

“You’re doing your customer a disservice if you aren’t providing ADAS calibrations.” ■

Photo: Hugh Boeset

NEW SAILUN TIRES DELIVER MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE AND PROFITABILITY

Sailun Tire Americas is bringing three more tires to the U.S. market to provide you with an even more comprehensive range of products designed to satisfy the increasingly complex demands of your customers, while optimizing your dealership’s profitability.

The Sailun TerraMax RT is a rugged-terrain light truck tire that addresses one of the fastest-growing segments in the U.S. tire market. Now available in 39 sizes to fit wheels ranging from 17 inches to 22 inches in diameter, the tire is 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMS)-certified for maximum severe snow performance and boasts 3D multi-wave sipes for added traction. (LT sizes are also pinned for studs.) Among other features, the Sailun TerraMax RT sports a squared profile and

staggered, scalloped shoulder lugs with stone ejectors; a centered tread block to ensure vehicle stability; and deep tread depth for outstanding traction.

In addition, the tire’s tread extends into the sidewall area to combine real-world traction with the aggressive, rugged look that light truck tire owners prefer. And the Sailun TerraMax RT’s unique, specialized compounding minimizes road noise to deliver the high level of driving comfort that consumers demand.

“In designing the Sailun TerraMax RT, we met with a lot of our customers and said, ‘Here’s our vision of what a fantastic R/T tire looks like. Can you tell us what’s important to your customers?” says Jared Lynch, Sailun’s director of corporate accounts. “One thing that kept coming up again and again was road noise.”

This feedback was incorporated into the Sailun TerraMax RT’s development, resulting in “one of the quietest R/T tires on the market today, regardless of tier. We invested an unheard-of amount of time and money on R&D and accomplished everything the customer wanted in this tire.”

Also new to Sailun’s light truck tire line-up is the Sailun TerraMax AT2, which will be available during the fourth quarter of 2024.

The tire features an aggressive, open shoulder tread design; 3PMS certification; a center rib to ensure superior ride control and stability; deep tread sipes for optimal traction; and more.

An update of Sailun’s incredibly successful TerraMax AT 4/S, the Sailun TerraMax AT2 has been “fine-tuned to deliver even better traction and more miles,” while sporting a modern, aesthetically pleasing look, says Lynch.

Photos: Sailun Tire USA (STU)

Available in 39 sizes, the Sailun TerraMax RT addresses one of the fastest-growing segments in the market.

The Sailun TerraMax AT2 features an aggressive shoulder design and other features. It’s available in more than 40 sizes.

“Aesthetics are very important for light truck owners.”

The Sailun TerraMax AT2 will be available in more than 40 sizes, ﬁtting wheels ranging from 15 inches to 20 inches in diameter. “We honed in on popular CUV and SUV sizes, which are becoming more popular today.

“We made sure we that oﬀer the most in-demand sizes for these vehicles.”

And Sailun is bringing its tried-andtrue winter tire workhorse, the Ice Blazer WSTX, to the U.S. market. The 3PMS-certifi ed Ice Blazer WSTX is a studdable winter tire that delivers optimal traction in all winter conditions — from snow, ice and slush to cold dry pavement — thanks to a specially formulated compound that ensures maximum tread block flexibility and grip without sacrificing other performance attributes.

The Sailun Ice Blazer WSTX has been perfected over the last several years through rigorous testing in Canada, where it was ﬁ rst introduced and has emerged as a winter tire segment leader. “Canada is a huge winter tire market,” says Lynch, “so we took the feedback we learned from our Canadian customers, made some key updates to the tire and are now selling it in the U.S.”

Unlike many winter tires, the Sailun Ice Blazer WSTX also has been engineered to deliver maximum miles. “A lot of customers who use winter tires in the U.S. might run them for six months, but only see snow for three months,” says Lynch. “When there’s no snow on the ground, some winter tires can wear rapidly. If you’re going to run a special set of

The Sailun TerraMax RT is a rugged-terrain light truck tire that addresses one of the fastest-growing segments in the U.S. tire market with a wide range of sizes.

Now available in the U.S., the Sailun Ice Blazer WSTX has been perfected over the last several years through rigorous testing in Canada, where it was ﬁrst introduced.

An update of Sailun’s incredibly successful TerraMax AT 4/S, the new Sailun TerraMax AT2 has been “ﬁne-tuned to deliver even better traction and more miles,” while sporting a modern look, say Sailun oﬃcials.

tires, you don’t want to burn through them quickly, so we adjusted our compounding to make sure this tire lasts a very long time without giving up performance.”

The Sailun TerraMax RT, Sailun TerraMax AT2 and Sailun Ice Blazer WSTX are exclusively available in the U.S. through NTW (National Tire Wholesale), which stocks them at more than 100 distribution centers nationwide, ensuring consistent, complete and timely availability for retailers.

Like other Sailun products, the tires also are priced competitively to give retailers maximum margin flexibility, says Lynch. “We let the local retailer decide what they can get for the tire, which is a critical part of Sailun’s total value proposition and a key differentiator within the marketplace. With that approach in mind, we believe the new Sailun TerraMax RT, Sailun TerraMax AT2 and Sailun Ice Blazer WSTX will be highly profi table additions to dealers’ product screens.” ■

The Sailun Ice Blazer WSTX has emerged as a winter tire segment leader.

“The most immediate change in the future of engine diagnostics is the ever-present need for new vehicle coverage, specifically around hybrid vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems,” says Danijela Haskin, senior product manager, aftermarket professional diagnostics, Bosch Mobility Aftermarket.

Photo: Bosch

Simplifying engine diagnostics

SUPPLIERS DISCUSS TRENDS, EQUIPMENT AND MORE

Madison Gehring

Diagnosing possible engine problems is not always an easy task, even for experienced technicians.

MTD recently talked with several engine diagnostics equipment providers to see what advancements have been made to help technicians perform this service more easily and accurately. They also provide a look at new equipment, as well as upcoming regulatory changes and what these changes might mean for technicians in the future. Here’s what they had to say.

MTD: What are some trends that are shaping the future of engine diagnostics?

John Forro, technical training specialist, Autel U.S.: I see six trends shaping the future of engine diagnostics: secure gateway modules, key programming, electric vehicle (EV) technology, hydrogen fuel cells, various data bus communications and programming and coding.

Danijela Haskin, senior product manager, aftermarket professional diagnostics, Bosch Mobility Aftermarket: The most immediate change in the future of engine diagnostics is the ever-present need for new vehicle coverage, specifically around hybrid vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Jesus Ferman, tech support, TEXA USA: The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration continue to push OEMs to reach increasing fuel economy standards. To achieve those goals for lower emission regulations and pollution reduction, electric motors and drivetrain components are increasingly popular with battery electric vehicle systems, as well as the latest hydrogen-powered vehicles.

MTD: What are the latest advancements in engine diagnostics technology that your company has developed?

Forro (Autel): Some of the features we have integrated within our tools recently include:

• Topology;

• Motor TruSpeed Repair;

• New chip keys;

• Universal chips for blade-style keys;

• Lithium battery testing;

• EV diagnostics;

• HV battery maintenance tools;

• Tesla tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) sensors;

• ADAS equipment;

• EV chargers;

• Remote expert capabilities, and;

• Enhanced commercial vehicle diagnostics.

Haskin (Bosch): Bosch’s latest diagnostic equipment is the Bosch ADS 525x and ADS 625x. These tools offer technicians an efficient solution to completing diagnostic scans quickly and efficiently using

Auto service

veri ed OE-licensed data, while adding new vehicle coverage across many brands each month.

Ferman (TEXA): e TEXA IDC5 soware has implemented some great features to help technicians better understand and navigate diagnostic options for the increasingly sophisticated vehicle systems. TEXA Live Data Dashboards (use) a unique, single-screen layout, which provide a visual representation of the live parameters of sensors and other components to provide a clear picture of the working vehicle system.

MTD: What are some common challenges technicians face when diagnosing engine issues and how do your products address these challenges?

Forro (Autel): Technology within the automotive industry is an ever-changing entity. Gone are the days when seasoned technicians could memorize most information needed to accurately diagnose and repair the vehicles they work on. A modern-day technician must be part fabricator, part electrician, part plumber and part diagnostician. A technician needs three things to be successful at diagnosing and repairing vehicles:

• Access to repair information. Our integration with Motor TruSpeed and our integrated help features found within our tools address this need.

• ey need to analyze and comprehend the data they are seeing. is is the real secret to what sets apart the good from the mediocre. One can take any group of technicians and hand them a scan tool to look at data and literally every tech will analyze the data di erently. e key is to have a thorough understanding of the powertrain control module so ware strategies. One cannot simply rely on diagnostic trouble codes alone. I call this the “diagnostic mindset.”

• High-quality diagnostic tools that are not only a ordable, but are packed with innovative features and bene ts such as the Autel tools are known for.

Besides our equipment, we have developed the Autel Training Academy. e classes we currently have — as well as the ones under development for future o ering

— are all taught by industry- leading technicians. is means that our instructors not only have walked the walk but have risen to the highest subject level experts the industry has to o er.

Haskin (Bosch): Many common challenges technicians face when diagnosing engine issues include navigating the complexity of modern engines, the need to run multiple tests to ensure diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) are correctly identi ed and slow diagnostic speeds.Additionally, technicians who may not update their scan tools frequently can run into issues if they are attempting to scan a vehicle that may not be covered.

“Technicians are repairing more complex engines as manufacturers push towards more eco-conscious and fuel-efﬁ cient vehicle systems,” says Jesus Ferman, tech support at TEXA USA. (Pictured, a TEXA Live Data Dashboard.)

Photo: TEXA USA

Bosch is addressing these challenges by creating tools that o er technicians the ability to quickly scan vehicles and identify issues within minutes. Additionally, Bosch consistently updates their scan tool products to add new features and increase vehicle coverage.

Ferman (TEXA): Technicians are repairing more complex engines as manufacturers push towards more eco-conscious and fuel-e cient vehicle systems. ( is) means there are more parts that can potentially cause issues, requiring service, repair or replacement.

e TEXA IDC5 so ware aims to support technicians with access to current, comprehensive data to conquer these new challenges. By providing access to smarter repair data (and) guided diagnostics — as well as OEM service bulletins, component

diagrams and service speci cations — TEXA is making their job easier by providing options to diagnose how to repair the vehicle quickly the rst time.

MTD: How do these new technologies improve the accuracy and e ciency of engine diagnostics?

Forro (Autel): Since the above-mentioned list is long, I will address just one example: remote expert. It is a known fact that most shops cannot a ord a factory scan tool, yearly updates and OEM subscriptions for every make of vehicle they service. It is common practice within the industry that when certain diagnostic, programming or calibrating needs arise, a shop may decide to call in an expert. Typically, this involves a mobile type of tech who specializes in their area of need to sublet these repairs or procedures. e alternative is sending the vehicle back to the dealer, which o en is not practical or a ordable.

Our remote expert feature on our MS series of tools allows repair shops to take advantage of using one of our vetted industry experts to remotely address those needs.

Haskin (Bosch): Technicians can trust the accuracy of their diagnostic scans and procedures, knowing they are sourced from OE-licensed data used in Bosch Diagnostics.

Ferman (TEXA): ese additions will provide technicians with a clearer picture of how each component functions in the engine’s operation and how to pinpoint a part that is beginning to fail. e nowfree access to use Motor TruSpeed repair data within TEXA IDC5 car software also provides advanced understanding of a history of repairs for all vehicle systems, better supporting (the technician’s) ability to diagnose the correct repair path. Understanding known repair issues and xes helps (technicians) understand underlying issues and helps them complete repairs faster.

MTD: Are there any upcoming regulatory changes that you anticipate will impact engine diagnostics, and how is your company preparing for them?

Forro (Autel): While there are many, the two most profound regulations are security feature integration and California Air Resources Board/EPA regulations. What most don’t understand is all the

bureaucracy that a tool manufacturer (goes through) on the back-end to make sure the regulations are met.

We work closely with organizations such as OEMs, the Equipment & Tool Institute, the National Automotive Service Task Force, AutoAuth and others to make sure that our tools are fully compliant, so you will never be locked out of using your tool to make money.

We also release weekly updates ensuring (technicians) are working with the latest so ware and procedures.

Haskin (Bosch): More and more ADAS technologies are being required by regula-

“Gone are the days when a seasoned tech could memorize most information needed to accurately diagnose and repair the vehicles they work on,” says John Forro, technical training specialist, Autel U.S. (Pictured is the Autel MS Ultra Diagnostic tablet featuring topology, MaxiFlash and VCMI.)

Photo: Autel U.S.

tory bodies and it’s critical for shop owners and technicians to be able to recalibrate these features. e Bosch ADS X scan tools can perform dynamic calibrations, which are commonly used on domestic vehicles. Additionally, the ADS X scan tool is compatible with the DAS 3000, Bosch’s static calibration system which has applications for European and Asian brands.

Ferman (TEXA): I anticipate three regulatory changes impacting engine diagnostics: rst, tighter emissions regulations and standards for passenger vehicles. e introduction of Euro 7 standards in Europe

or more stringent EPA regulations in the United States are expected to a ect engine diagnostics.

Second, as electric and hybrid vehicles become more mainstream, regulations around their diagnostics, especially concerning their battery health and E-drivetrains, are evolving. ese changes demand that dealer-level diagnostic tools be capable of handling the complexities of newer, more environmentally friendly technologies.

Finally, data privacy and telematics sharing regulations (as) with the rise of digitally connected vehicles, there is an increasingly high focus on data privacy and security. Engine diagnostics tools and the technicians operating them responsibly must comply with these regulations.

TEXA is investing in research and development to ensure our diagnostic tools remain compliant with these upcoming regulations by meeting and partnering with the OEs directly. This supports current diagnostic options to stay ahead of changes in emissions standards and expanding our tool capabilities. ■

Gills Point S Tire & Auto

‘Doing our own thing’ GILLS POINT S IS INVESTING

Joy Kopcha By

Four years ago, Gills Point S Tire & Auto was a family-owned business based in Oregon, with 17 stores. Since then, the company has quadrupled in size and leapfrogged from the Paci c Northwest to the Northeast, adding locations in some states in between.

But President Eric Gill insists the words that described his business in 2020 still pertain today. “We’re still a family-run company,” he says.

Oregon is still home to Gills Point S Tire & Auto and Gill continues to believe in the Point S brand and the advantages of belonging to the Point S USA cooperative.

Yet Gills Point S Tire & Auto has grown to encompass 71 stores throughout 10 states. And Gill isn’t shy about wanting to continue to expand, though he no longer assigns speci c store numbers to his goals.

“I still remember telling my kids that when I got to 10 stores, my dream was to open a restaurant. So I got to 10 or 11 stores — and this obviously was a long

AND GROWING

time ago.” His children asked, “’Can you open a restaurant now?’”

He said no.

“I’m wiser now,” he says. “Tire stores are better.”

‘DOING OUR OWN THING’

e growth at Gills Point S Tire & Auto has come as the larger Point S USA cooperative has worked to extend its brand, too.

e group is on a quest to have 500 stores and cover all 50 states by 2028 and it achieved a new record with 69 new stores last year. Fi een of those locations were due to the growth of Gill’s business.

He’s long been the largest Point S dealer in the cooperative’s U.S. network and for many years served as the chairman of the board.

“I’ve spent my whole life growing both this company and Point S,” says Gill, who adds that the cooperative o ers di erent tools and assets to tire dealers of all sizes.

“I think everybody who’s part of

Gills Point S Tire & Auto has quadrupled its store count since 2020. President Eric Gill says he used COVID-19 relief funding to reinvest in the business and more recently, employees and acquired dealers have provided additional equity to fuel the company’s ongoing growth.

Point S takes what they want out of it. Some people who are brand new really like it for a buying group.

“If you’re one store, I think they bring a lot of value to buying. Or if you’re a couple of stores and you really want to have a branded concept, they bring great value to somebody that kind of wants to glom onto all the branded assets we have.

“And then (for) someone like us, we’re fully entrenched in the Point S brand. What it brings is both an opportunity to network with other dealers who might want an exit strategy, and … (it) can still bring us buying opportunities.

“ ey’re part of TAG (Tire Alliance Groupe Ltd.), which I think is (a) very important part of our product mix. And even though Nicole (Ferriter, the director of marketing and customer experience for Gills Point S) is like a rock star, it’s still hard to do everything. We don’t have a 13-person marketing department. We’ve got Nicole, so we lean on Point S and their

Photo: Gills Point S

Gills Point S Tire & Auto

relationship with their outside marketing company (for) branding support.

“The machine works, so why do I need to reinvent the machine? Sure, I could make it say ‘Gills Tire,’ but I haven’t figured out why I would.”

When Point S USA leaders preach the gospel of the group’s benefits, they often hone in on the fact that independent tire dealers remain independent owners of their businesses after they sign on as members.

“We’re required to brand, but they also give us latitude that if we take over a store like Budget Tire in Michigan, we don’t have to rebrand in the first 30 days. We have time to rebrand it. Our intent is to rebrand stores as Gills Point S.”

Gills Point S acquired Budget Tire, a five-store operation, in late-2023.

That same year Gills Point S acquired Hogan Tire Co., another five-store business with “a very strong brand” that Gill described as a dominant player in the Maine market.

As a result, the company has taken its time with store rebranding efforts. “It’s not like we had to figure it out and get this done in six months,” he says.

As the Gills Point S brand has expanded, it hasn’t moved in a straight line from one state to a neighboring state. Ferriter said that brings in another advantage of the larger Point S group.

“In 2020, we jumped from Oregon to New England, but we’re not in 50 states. So I think one of the other big benefits is we still have that national footprint,” and can show consumers in Oregon that they can get Point S service whether they’re also in Idaho or Montana.

“We still get all of that warranty power that Point S is bringing to the table,” she says. “It’s really a good relationship and it’s a benefit to our customers, too.”

Gill says he thinks there’s a lot of opportunity to attract tire dealers who “want to stay independent and that’s what we continue to support — doing our own thing.”

SELLERS ARE BUYING IN

That independent streak remains a big part of Gill’s own business. And it’s a big piece of his recent acquisition streak.

Gills Point S Tire & Auto has taken on equity investment and in 2023 collected about $1 million of “gold equity or

Eric Gill is the president of Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service. He’s growing his own company of stores while the larger Point S USA cooperative is also seeking to be a national retailer with 500 stores in 50 states.

Photo: MTD

employee buy-in,” he says. Members of the company’s operational and support teams have invested their own funds into the business, including regional, district and support staff. (Gills Point S classifies anyone who doesn’t work directly in store operations as its large support staff. That includes people in accounting, marketing and human resources, as examples.)

hand over the reins? Great — you’ve got a support team here that can take that in and get you ready for that.”

There are also people like Jared McDermott, a former owner of L.P. Anderson Point S Tire and Auto Service in Billings, Mont.

Ferriter says McDermott felt maxed out running two stores and was questioning his plans for the future. He knew he needed support. He sold his business to Gill and Ferriter says McDermott “kind of fell back in love with the business. I think it makes us really different.”

‘WE WORK FOR THE STORES’

Offering those options has pushed Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service to expand and invest in its back-end office operations — the teams that support all stores.

Store owners who have sold their businesses have also invested equity into the Gills Point S Tire & Auto business.

“We have six or seven ex-owners, all having true, legitimate equity,” says Gill.

Some choose to retire, but still invest. Others want to get rid of the headaches of daily operations, so they sell but join the company.

Ferriter sees that flexibility as “one of the key drivers of success with how many stores we were able to bring on last year.

“What’s going to work for you? You still want to be involved in the day-today? Great — there’s a pathway for that. You want to retire and you’re ready to

“My number one goal is to continue to build my leadership team and my operational team to be the best in class because I just want to make sure that we never have to feel like (we aren’t) in control of our destiny,” says Gill.

“I want Nicole to make sure in three or five or 10 years that if I decide to retire, someone would look at us and say, ‘Well, I want not only that business, but I want Nicole and I want James and I want Jim and Bob.’”

Gill wants to build and maintain an efficient, effective and professional “A-team.” That’s one reason his business is structured around store operations.

Eric Gill and Gills Point S Tire & Auto got its start in Oregon. This store is in the state’s capital city of Salem. But the dealership has expanded to the East Coast of the U.S. and now includes 71 locations.

Photo: Gills Point S

Gills Point S Tire & Auto

While the external expansion of Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service has been noticeable in the last four years, Gill says the company has also undergone an internal transformation to support its growth. A huge support team of departments works to make things easier and faster inside the dealership’s stores.

Photo: Gills Point S

“If they’re not making these (store) guys’ jobs easier, faster, quicker (and) more profitable, we’re failing.”

But Gill has also learned a hard lesson in recent years with his team.

“We lost one of our key employees during COVID — one of my operational,

jack-of-all trades. He could do IT. He could do operations. He was worth four people. When he unfortunately passed away, we had to re-evaluate.”

It was going to be impossible to replace the man’s institutional knowledge. But the company also needed to focus more

resources on some of the roles he was filling. Gills Point S promoted someone to focus on IT functions and has since gone a step further to hire external IT professionals. Realizing and accepting that he’s needed to outsource some of those functions has been one of the most difficult steps in the dealership’s growth journey.

But in the end, Gill says it comes back to the basic concept of continuing to operate Gills Point S Tire & Auto as a family-run business. He says it boils down to three pillars:

• “We is greater than I.”

• “We figure out how to say yes,” not just to customers, but to employees.

• “We’re committed to growth,” which goes for employees, as well as rooftops.

“External hiring is really hard, so we’re putting a lot of money into our current employees,” says Gill, with the expectation they’ll continue to grow in their skills and expertise and contributions to the company. ■

GONNA DEALERS

IDennis McCarron

How to improve your net profit and cash flow

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS: BOOST YOUR LABOR RATE

’m not an economist, but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that we are three years into high inflation, which is very unlikely to go negative, barring a total disaster worldwide.

We also are roughly four months away from 2025 and regardless of who wins the presidential election, inflation isn’t going to pop like a balloon. Interest rates will tick down a quarter of a point here and a quarter of a point there. But wages won’t magically reduce. In fact, at most tire dealerships, wages are stagnant. As a tire dealer, you can’t control the economy. You can control how you manage your business, though.

Net profit is one thing and it’s a very important thing. Net profit specifically shows you how much your efforts are being rewarded. Put another way, it measures the success of fixing customers’ vehicles.

In our industry, most tire dealerships are below 5% net profit, which is essentially one worker’s comp claim away from bankruptcy. Ten percent net profit is a fair trade-off for the risk, difficulty and hassle of being in a grinding industry. Fifteen percent net profit allows you to be transformative.

Why? Because at 15%, there is ample net profit to help your balance sheet sustain more expenses and costs, like taxes, accounts payable, payroll commitments and oh yeah, future expenses like renovations, capital upgrades and more.

If you are making a net profit that makes you smile, that’s fantastic. That’s quite an accomplishment in a very tough, competitive and ever-changing market. But net profit doesn’t guarantee you’ll have money to sustain the act of being in business.

Net profit shows how well you fix cars. Cash flow shows how well you manage money. You can make net profit for years while slowly going bankrupt. You can show a net profit loss and remain open for a few years. What you can’t do is run out of money. At a low net — say, 5% — you won’t find many banks willing to lend to you because their risk is too high.

If you make a profit, but run out of cash, you also will have to borrow money at some point. Borrowing money is very expensive right now and not likely to dramatically change.

Several years ago, I wrote a column about acquiring various loans when interest rates were close to zero. I didn’t factor in the emergence of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. I was simply looking at normal business cycles. It was a good time to cement access to cash, even if you didn’t need it. Today, it’s a far better choice to generate that extra cash through your business.

No matter what happens electorally, tough financial times will continue. In order to get through that, you need to go above just looking at your net profit. Get your nerd hat on and talk to your accountant or join a 20 group.

If your showroom looks like a kid’s party clown was recently there or the color scheme is from the 1970s or ‘80s, it’s because you have no cash flow.

And yes, you’ll hear this again: raise your labor rates. We are still close to $100 less than all other trades, hourly. If you are below $170 an hour as a base labor rate, you are harming your business and hurting the industry in general.

If you have a local competitor that charges far below your posted labor rate, make the difference even more striking. Force customers to question how could one guy do what you do for so much less? Don’t make it a $20 difference. That looks enticing enough for most customers to give the other shop a chance. Create a huge difference. Make it a no-brainer.

You had the guts to hang your own shingle and push through the first few years of struggle. It’s now time to make your shop shine. Charge what the industry demands so you have cash to pay for large equipment, renovations and the inevitable pay raises — and to make a life for yourself and your family. You earned it twice over.

So call your accountant and ask how you can make your balance sheet better, so you’re more prepared for the future. Bank the profit as much as you can and stay out of bad, short-term debt. I’ll get you started. Your asset-to-liabilities ratio should be one-to-one. Your return on assets should be at least 10%. And you should turn your inventory at least 10 times a year.

Don’t wait until tomorrow. Get started today. ■

Dennis McCarron is a partner at Cardinal Brokers Inc., one of the leading brokers in the tire and automotive industry (www.cardinalbrokers.com.) To contact McCarron, email him at dennis@cardinalbrokers.com.

Net profit shows how well you fix cars. Cash flow shows how well you manage money.

Photo: Burt Brothers Tire & Service Inc.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Best practices with letters of intent

Michael McGregor By

Last month, I explained how we nd it more e ective to employ a two-stage sale process that involves rst getting indications of interest (IOIs) from as many buyers as we can and then narrowing the buyer pool by inviting them to submit formal letters of intent (LOIs.)

Our process works much like a funnel, as shown on this page.

We rst assemble a target list of strategic buyers and private equity groups that have an interest in the type of business we are representing. For a recent tire dealership out west, the nal approved list had over 200 targets that we reached out to.

Once we’re in the market, we might then

have up to 40 phone or email discussions, with half of those dropping out for various reasons. As the chart suggests, we maybe send out 20 con dential information memorandums (CIMs) to interested and vetted buyers.

Along with this CIM, we typically send a process letter, which describes when we expect to receive IOIs and then more formal and comprehensive LOIs.

An LOI is a crucial document that outlines the basic terms and conditions of the transaction. While not legally binding, the LOI sets the stage for the detailed purchase agreement and due diligence that follows.

20 CIMs Delivery 8-15 Meetings 6-8 Indications of Interest (IOIs) 3-4 Letters of Intent (LOIs)

Having a clear and comprehensive LOI can help prevent misunderstandings, streamline the negotiation process and lay a strong foundation for a successful transaction.

e LOI should clearly state its purpose: to outline the preliminary understanding between the buyer and seller. It should specify that except for certain binding provisions — such as confidentiality, exclusivity and governing law — the LOI is non-binding and subject to the execution of a de nitive purchase agreement.

While the LOI is a preliminary document, it should still cover all critical aspects of the deal. is includes the purchase price, structure (whether it’s a stock or asset deal), terms and any contingencies that must be met. Additionally, it should outline the steps that will follow, such as due diligence and timeline for closing.

Providing detail helps ensure that both parties have a mutual understanding of the most important deal terms before investing signi cant time and resources in the deal.

Confidentiality is vital in M&A transactions, so the LOI should include

a confidentiality clause that protects both parties when disclosing proprietary information during the negotiation process and a erwards.

An exclusivity clause, o en referred to as a “noshop” provision, is commonly included in LOIs to prevent the seller from negotiating with other potential buyers for a speci ed period. is allows the buyer to invest resources in due diligence, without the risk of being outbid in the process.

e LOI should outline the scope and timeline of the due diligence process.

An LOI should be written in clear, concise language that is easy for both parties to understand. While legal jargon is necessary for certain provisions, the overall tone of the document should be straightforward. is minimizes the risk of misinterpretation and helps both parties stay focused on the key issues. Only experienced attorneys should be used when cra ing or reviewing LOIs.

It’s important to remain exible during the LOI stage and beyond. While the LOI sets the foundation for the transaction, it is not the nal agreement. ere may be adjustments to the terms of the deal. Being open to renegotiating certain aspects of the LOI can lead to a smoother transaction process.

A well-cra ed LOI is an essential step in the M&A process that establishes a clear framework for negotiations and due diligence. By following these best practices, parties can mitigate risks, manage expectations and set the stage for a successful transaction. ■

Michael McGregor is a partner at Focus Investment Banking LLC (focusbankers.com/automotive/tire-and-service). He advises and assists multi-location tire dealers on mergers and acquisitions. For more information, contact him at michael.mcgregor@focusbankers.com.

Dealer Development

Randy O’Connor By

DReady to scale your business? MAKE TRAINING YOUR ‘REPLACEMENT’ A PRIORITY

uring a recent seminar, I heard a training and peer support group provider say that 50% of the tire dealership owners listening to his presentation would be out of the business in two to three years. And he said there’s nothing they could do about it.

That didn’t sit well with everything I know about the spirit and strength of independent tire dealers.

With all of my heart, I disagreed with his assessment!

However, I will say that creating something that resonates with customers and employees well beyond your involvement, especially when scale is at hand, requires a different type of leadership.

When you scale your business, you have to place and train new leaders to fill the roles you should leave behind.

Training these folks takes a totally different skill set than what you use to just get through the day. In fact, you need to undergo a professional transformation of your own.

This takes a dialed-in, step-by-step vision, plus time, patience and resources.

In most well-run tire dealerships, there’s usually one person who contributes most to the overall customer experience.

The best example of this is when you place a new hire on your team and all of a sudden you see very positive results in a short amount of time.

This new addition brings something to your business that has either been missing or hasn’t been prioritized and managed well. In one form or another, that person has brought in a system or process that affects behavior.

However, if the difference in performance hinges heavily on one person, your model isn’t scalable.

This applies to a single location dealership as much, if not more, than multi-location dealerships.

That’s where systems supported by solid processes become integral. After all, it’s finely tuned and consistent behaviors that shape your customers’ experiences and your bottom line.

Here’s the most impactful and most prevalent example we see today: your vehicle inspection system. Most call it a “process.” Really, though, a vehicle inspection system is made up of a series of processes, with you — as the dealership’s owner — usually acting as the link between customer service and vehicle service.

You make sure that expectations are set and the inspection is discussed with the customer. You make sure promised times are agreed upon. You then review, organize and assign the work.

You make sure other work is on task and on time to ensure the best chances of honoring promise times.

You help out by shuffling vehicles around, pulling tires and filters, etc.

You provide updates to your customer service team so they can update the customer.

You promised a thorough inspection and now you have the results to share with the customer.

You now reorganize, if necessary, and delegate the work. You follow up with your technicians to ensure safety and proper execution before giving the work order back to customer service to settle with the customer.

This transition is a huge challenge for most owners. Why? Because when you’re not present, it can get scrambled.

Sadly, we exist in a very fragmented portion of the retail market. Finding resources and support isn’t easy.

However, learning from those who have walked before you isn’t as hard as you might think.

I recently sat in on a group conversation where a tire dealer was wondering when and if it was the right time to sell his business.

‘When you scale your business, you have to place and train new leaders to fill the roles you should leave behind.’

His peers provided their own experiences. His perspective is now different today than before.

His perspective has changed.

Hearing from other owners who are either dealing with the same issues or have been there and done that is very valuable.

The truth is, none of us are alone unless we choose to be and none of our operations should solely rest on the back of one person.

Being an owner/operator is a tough gig. Moving beyond that is yet another. But that’s what our industry and our customers deserve.

Join your state tire dealer association. Find another independent tire dealer in your area who’s also successful and connect. Reach out to a 20 group and get invited to a meeting as a guest.

I promise that if you have plans for improvement and growth you will not be disappointed.

Sure, some plans are better than others. But any plan is better than no plan.

As the owner of an independent tire dealership, you are today in a much better position to succeed than most any other time in recent memory.

When value is high, you build on it. ■

Tire and auto industry veteran Randy O’Connor is the Owner/Principal of D2D Development Group (Dealer to Dealer Development Group.) He can be reached at randy@d2ddevelopmentgroup.com. For more information, please visit www.d2ddevelopmentgroup.com.

Who’s in? GET YOUR EMPLOYEES ON BOARD WITH EV SERVICE

Craig Van Batenburg By

When will the switch from gasoline and diesel happen? It is happening now. Do most technicians under 30 want to work on electric vehicles? One way to find out is to ask them — not during a group discussion in a meeting setting, but much better on a road test.

For over a century, the automobile cabin has been a private place to have a confidential chat. It still works.

On a road test, you can ask about the vehicle you just repaired and ask your tech how he or she is doing.

I have three questions I have been asking the great people who have worked with me since my first hire in 1978. I wish my boss had asked me these questions:

• What can we do to make your job less stressful?

• What can we do to streamline the operation so we can get more work done?

• What do you need to do to make your life and work better?

what a bad choice I had made and that the battery would cost me more than what the car was worth. He kept on talking as I picked up my key and walked away from the service desk. I asked the porter to open the overhead door and left.

I then called a Kia representative I knew, as we both were on the advisory board at a local vocational high school. When I returned a month later, Matt was no longer employed. His disdain for EVs was obvious, but he did not need to express it.

How do you make sure that electric car customers are respected? I have a customer named Doug Voss, the owner of Neighborhood Wrench. He has been in the business a long time and has been coming to classes at my company, Automotive Career Development Center (ACDC), before hybrids were here. Currently, he has a Tesla Model Y, two Tesla Model 3s and a Ford Lightning pickup truck.

Doug is back at ACDC taking our 10-day EV class. He doesn’t live in the past. As his customers migrate to new technologies, he is staying with them. Doug has been at this a long time. He is also looking to hire more help in his service bays. We visited after class last week. Here’s some advice he shared with me:

• Have your staff drive an EV for a few days;

‘Once you know who is in and who is out at your dealership, make your plans to keep all of your EV customers coming back.’

These questions only work if the person is willing to look for a solution. Some people are problem solvers and others are problem collectors. The former group is a lot easier to work with.

Once the culture of problem solving becomes the core of your business, you will see who is stepping up. Those are the ones who will help you grow into the future. Some will want to live in the past and not embrace the world we live in. Some will say no to high-voltage systems and will try to educate you on the myths they picked up on YouTube or online articles that proclaim that EVs are destroying the planet. Let them work in your dealership’s bays, but keep them away from your customers.

A personal story: I added a new EV to my company’s fleet in February 2020. I found a 2019 Kia Niro EV Premium edition at a great price and bought it to use in class. At 49,000 miles, the driver’s heated seat stopped working. I called the dealership that I bought it from and made an appointment. I arrived on time and dropped it off.

Matt, the service advisor at the dealership, was, quite simply, a jerk. He asked me where I bought the car.

I answered, “At this dealership.” He went on to explain to me

• Consider renting out EVs to make some extra profit;

• Go to car shows with your own EV to drum up business;

• Learn all you can about hybrid and EV repairs and preventive maintenance;

• Get involved with social media. You might find a good tech that way;

• Install an EV charger in front of your shop, and;

• Wrap your EV and use it to drop off customers, run errands and pick up parts.

The internal combustion engine has been good to us. I started working in the late-1960s at a Honda motorcycle shop and then Honda sold a car in the early-’70s, the Civic. It was the start of my career. Today, I drive a Tesla and a Zero electric motorcycle. I don’t live in the past. It is 2024 and I am not going back. Your employees shouldn’t go back, either.

Once you know who is in and who is out at your dealership, make your plans to keep all of your EV customers coming back. It took a lot of work to make your reputation a good one, so keep it that way. ■

Craig Van Batenburg is the CEO of Van Batenburg’s Garage Inc., dba Automotive Career Development Center (ACDC), which is based in Worcester, Mass. A 50-year automotive service industry veteran, Van Batenburg provides training for facilities that service — or want to service — electric and hybrid vehicles. For more information, see www.fixhybrid. com or email him at craig@fixhybrid.com.

Focus on Industry

Five years DOWN PRINX

CHENGSHAN IS CELEBRATING ITS GROWTH, AND LOOKING FOR MORE

Joy Kopcha By

Prinx Chengshan Tire North America Inc. is celebrating its first five years of growth and also paving a path for continued expansion as it seeks more dealers to distribute its two value tire brands.

In the last two years alone, Prinx Chengshan has nearly quintupled the number of tire dealers selling its Prinx and Fortune brands — from 11 to 54. And the product offerings of both brands are on a rapid expansion plan, too, with both new tread patterns, as well as added sizes to current lines.

The company launched its newest tires — a pair of all-terrain tires — the Prinx HiCountry AT2 and the Fortune Tormenta AT2 — during an anniversary celebration with dealers in late-July.

Both of the new tires will feature more sizes than the company’s existing all-terrain products and as Prinx Chengshan updates its lineups, it’s also offering distinct tread patterns for each brand, rather than selling carbon copies with different brand names on their sidewalls.

Ken Coltrane, vice president of product development and marketing, said both

new tires will be available for orders during the 2024 SEMA Show, with delivery to North American dealers expected in February 2025.

Coltrane said both tires were designed to answer a demand from dealers — that the all-terrain product have a more aggressive tread and sidewall. Both tires will expand from 29 SKUs to 41 SKUs in both metric and LT sizes. Eleven sizes will have options for outlined white lettering on the sidewall. The full line will be 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake-certified. Both the Prinx HiCountry AT2 and the Fortune Tormenta AT2 will carry a 50,000-mile warranty.

So why is the company waiting to take orders until November? Samuel Felberbaum, president of Prinx Chengshan Tire North America, said molds for each size are still being built.

Coltrane added that each mold is also individually tested before production begins. The tires for both brands will be made at Prinx Chengshan’s Thailand factory.

AN INTERNATIONAL OVERVIEW

Michael Chu, CEO of Prinx Chengshan North America, is also general manager of Prinx Chengshan’s international business. He provided a global overview of the Chengshan Group, which established its Rongcheng Rubber Factory in 1976 in China. It focused on the Asian market through 2004 and in 2005, expanded through strategic alliances, including one with Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. that continued until 2015.

It wasn’t until 2016 that the company’s international expansion began, which

Samuel Felberbaum, president of Prinx Chengshan Tire North America Inc., said the company has grown from 11 to 54 tire dealers distributing the Prinx and Fortune brands since 2022. And the hunt for dealers continues to expand even more.

Photo: MTD

Michael Chu leads all international efforts for Prinx Chengshan, and as part of that serves as CEO of Prinx Chengshan Tire North America. Photo: MTD

included the founding of its North American business in 2019.

Chu said the company now has two production sites — one in China and another in Thailand, plus three research and development centers around the globe. In 2023, Chu said the company had total sales of $1.4 billion.

“We continue to grow in both sales and production,” Chu said.

The factories have a combined capacity of 23 million passenger tires and 10 million truck tires, plus one million bias products and 50,000 off-the-road tire products. As of two years ago, the company also produces air springs and has capacity for one million pieces.

Globally, Chu says the company has more than 2,000 distributors selling products in 169 countries.

OFFERING A BROAD REACH

While the team is working to add dealers to its distribution network, Felberbaum said the company is also investing in marketing both the Prinx and Fortune brands with a two-fold goal: “To increase sales of the

brand for you (the distributor) and your customers in a profitable manner. And we want to increase brand awareness.”

He noted that the brands offer a practical solution.

“We meet 95% of the needs for the PLT and TBR markets respectively.”

The brands have a S/T tire, too.

For the Prinx brand, marketing has aligned itself with the United Soccer League (USL). Prinx is the official tire partner of the USL and as part of that agreement, there are opportunities to schedule USL dealer days. The first one was held July 31.

The Fortune brand has gone all-in on pickleball and is the exclusive tire partner of USA Pickleball. Felberbaum said the players and enthusiasts of the sport represent “an untapped market,” with participants who travel by car to compete in tournaments.

HAPPY WITH 3PMS OPTIONS

Ray Van Veen is the inventory manager for Trail Tire Supply, a wholesaler that serves western Canada, including its own

Trail Tire retail stores. Van Veen says Trail Tire has been a Prinx customer for three years and so far carries the brand’s light truck and commercial truck products in its six warehouses.

“We haven’t gone into the passenger yet. We will once they get all sizes of the allweather tire,” he said, referring to the Prinx HiSeason 4S, which was introduced at the 2023 SEMA Show. The next two phases of size offerings are expected in 2025.

Van Veen said he likes that every size of the new all-terrain tire, the HiCountry AT2, will have the 3PMS symbol, as that’s an important selling point in his market. “In our world, all-season is on the way out. All weather is the new (normal).”

But he said the move by consumers from tier-one and tier-two products to lower-tiered tires is real and has been a sustained trend since the pandemic, so he sees a need and a market for value-priced products.

Van Veen said customers are satisfied with the Prinx offering. “Once we get customers on the product, they’re on it. The name is a little different.” ■

Focus on Industry

Sailun targets R/T segment with new tire

COMPANY EXPECTS SUBSTANTIAL RUGGED-TERRAIN GROWTH

Customers from across the United States and Canada tested the new Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T’s capabilities at a recent ride-and-drive event , which took place outside of Las Vegas, Nev.

Photo: MTD

Mike Manges By

Sailun Tire Americas is looking to pick up more share in the rapidly growing rugged-terrain segment with the new Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T.

More than 40 Sailun customers from across the United States and Canada tested the recently introduced tire’s capabilities at a ride-and-drive event outside of Las Vegas. Nev.

During the event, Jamie McIntyre, Sailun’s senior vice president of sales, Canada, and product development, North

America, told MTD that the tiremaker expects to see the R/T segment “grow substantially over the next several years.

“We’ve already seen in the R/T and A/T (all-terrain) segments a 9% increase” on a year-over-year basis.

Meanwhile, he says, “the M/T segment is starting to fall o a little bit.”

Available in the United States in 40 sizes and tting wheels ranging from 16 inches to 22 inches in diameter, the Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T has been engineered to deliver optimal o -road

traction, as well as a quiet, comfortable ride, he added.

“When we designed this tire, we knew what it needed to be,” said McIntyre.

The Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T also is 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMS)-certi ed, pinned for studs and comes with a 45,000-mile warranty.

It’s manufactured at Sailun’s plant in Cambodia, which McIntyre describes as the rm’s “latest and greatest” and “most technologically advanced” manufacturing facility.

all-terrain tires on their trucks, so now we can o er a good, value-priced alternative.”

Matt Pope, sales representative for MidState Wholesale Tire, which is based in St. Joseph, Minn., told MTD he was impressed “with the (tire’s) lack of slippage. e tire grabs and does what it’s supposed to.”

Pope believes the product will be an easy sell for both Mid-State Wholesale Tire and the distributor’s customers.

“People want an aggressive-looking tire that isn’t a mud tire and won’t howl on the road. is looks like it will be a pretty quiet tire.”

“We’re selling the Ridgecrawler R/T now,” said Matt Leeper, vice president of sales and vendor relations at Tire Distributors of Georgia Inc.

Feedback from customers “has been all positive,” he noted. ■

In the United States, the Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T is exclusively available through the Tire Alliance Groupe, while in Canada, the tire is available through OK Tire, which has more than 325 locations.

“Blackhawk is one of our core brands” and o ers the same value proposition as Sailun’s other brands, said McIntyre.

“We’re trying to provide a tier-one tire at a value price,” he told MTD.

Sailun tries to position its products “20% to 30% cheaper than a agship brand or the legacy brands that have been out there for a long time. We’ve found that’s our sweet spot.

“But we’re not the cheapest (supplier) out there and we never will be.”

DEALER FEEDBACK

“I was impressed with the performance” of the Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T, Justin Kinvig, owner of an OK Tire store in Pentickton, British Columbia, told MTD a er driving on the tire for several hours.

Kinvig already sold a few sets of the Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T before the recent ride-and-drive event and said customers have responded favorably. In fact, he revealed, “one came back and said, ‘Don’t be shy about selling this.’

“ e tire looks nice and the fact it’s 3PMS-rated is a good selling point,” added Kinvig. “Not all R/T tires out there have that.”

He also likes the Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T’s price point.

“Where we live, a lot of guys run

REMA TIP TOP Group of Companies

Blackhawk Ridgecrawler

ride.

Photo: MTD

Focus on Industry

Integration status report from Mavis

LEADERSHIP PROVIDES AN UPDATE A YEAR

AFTER NTB AND TIRE KINGDOM PURCHASE

It’s been 14 months since Mavis Tire Express Services Corp. acquired 595 NTB Tire & Service Centers and Tire Kingdom stores from TBC Corp.

In this MTD exclusive, David Sorbaro, who shares CEO duties at Mavis with his brother, Stephen Sorbaro, provides an update on the integration of the locations into Mavis’ portfolio.

MTD: More than one year later, how is the integration of NTB and Tire Kingdom into Mavis’ operations coming along?

Sorbaro: (It’s) coming along well. Fortunately, there were a lot of great people in the organization, so we never felt that we were starving for talent. All of those team members have been integrated into the Mavis organization. All of the ‘people integration’ is behind us.

MTD: Is the integration on schedule? Have there been any challenges?

Sorbaro: Everything has pretty much gone as expected. We knew going in that the older, physically larger stores would be more challenging to operate and that has been true. Sometimes when facilities are larger than required there is a tendency to create clutter and disorganization.

MTD: Are all of the nearly 600 NTB and Tire Kingdom stores still open? Have any closed since last year?

Sorbaro: Twenty- ve or so older, poorly located stores have been closed. is was also expected.

“We are always looking to expand all of our brands and are willing to make signiﬁ cant investments in order to do so,” says Sorbaro.

Photo: Mavis Tire Express Services Corp.

MTD: Have any NTB and/or Tire Kingdom stores been converted to the Mavis brand and format? If so, how many and why? Or conversely, is the plan to allow NTB and Tire Kingdom stores to continue to operate under their existing names?

Sorbaro: No Tire Kingdom stores have been rebranded nor are there plans to do so. Some NTB stores which are in close proximity to Mavis brand stores have been rebranded to Mavis.

MTD: What further investments is Mavis’ ownership planning to make in the NTB/Tire Kingdom stores and overall business, including Mavis-branded outlets? Are there plans to expand the NTB/Tire Kingdom brands into other geographies?

Sorbaro: We are always looking to expand all of our brands and are willing to make signi cant investments in order to do so.

MTD: Are you looking at other tire dealerships/tire store chains to acquire? Where do you see the biggest opportunities for growth?

Sorbaro: We see growth coming from increases in same-store sales, adding new stores and possibly through acquisition. ■

Mavis Tire Express Services Corp.’s acquisition of Tire Kingdom and NTB Tire & Service stores from TBC Corp., which gave the Millwood, N.Y.-based Mavis more than 2,000 locations, also marked TBC’s exit from company-owned tire retail.

Photo: MTD

Mike Manges By

Focus on Dealers

What’s next for Burt Brothers?

LARGER ACQUISITIONS, GREENFIELD PROJECTS AND NEW STATES WILL PLAY A ROLE IN GROWTH

Mike Manges By

In this MTD exclusive, Brian Maciak, CEO of Burt Brothers Tire & Service Inc., discusses why the North Salt Lake, Utah-dealership is primed for expansion.

MTD: Recently, you said Burt Brothers wants to have 75 to 100 locations within the next five years and will be expanding outside of its traditional market of Utah and into the surrounding Mountain region. What specific markets do you see as being high-potential and why?

Maciak: If you follow Highway 15 all the way from Idaho to Arizona, you’re going to see more and more of our locations. I’m not sure (they) will be necessarily Burt Brothers locations. We’re not wed to that. We’re looking at being in Idaho. We’re looking at (fleshing) out our footprint in Salt Lake City. Southern Utah is attractive. We’re looking to grow there. In Nevada — in Las Vegas, Henderson and Mesquite — we’re looking (to add) there. And there are some potential deals in Colorado.

MTD: Is Burt Brothers planning to expand mostly through acquisitions, greenfield stores or a combination of both?

Maciak: Definitely a combination of both. Our goal of being (at) 75 to 100 (stores) is not just us throwing a dart at a board. These are realistic goals. But to hit those goals, we’ll need to use acquisitions, as well as greenfield. We’ll likely use acquisitions to get into new markets and then greenfield to fill them out. We’ve gotten very good over the last six months at knowing what makes a good store for us — looking at a variety of factors, like demographics, traffic patterns and the age of vehicles. We’re much more surgical at looking at what needs to be around a location to make it successful.

MTD: Could we see other brands within your portfolio?

“So far, Burt Brothers has grown by picking up one or two stores at a time,” says Brian Maciak, the dealership’s CEO. “We no longer have to do that. We know how to integrate bigger deals, so we’re welcoming those.”

Maciak: Burt Brothers is our core brand. We know the formula to make that successful, but we won’t let that be an obstacle to growth outside of Utah.

MTD: To date, most of the acquisitions made by Burt Brothers have been smaller tire dealerships. Will this continue to be the strategy? At some point, could you see Burt Brothers acquiring larger, multi-location and/or multi-geography tire dealerships?

Maciak: I think we’re at that point right now. So far, Burt Brothers has grown by picking up one or two stores at a time. We no longer have to do that. We no longer eschew larger deals. We know how to integrate bigger deals, so we’re welcoming those. And we know those larger deals will give us a foray into other markets. I think the time is now to do deals on a multi-location — as well as a multi-geography — basis.

MTD: In what ways will Bestige Holdings, Burt Brothers’ majority owner, drive the dealership’s growth?

Maciak: They really have been the driving force behind our growth. They came into the picture in late-2022, when Burt Brothers had 13 locations. We’re now at 26 and are about six weeks away from opening our 27th. A lot of that growth has come in 2024. So Bestige has been that driving force.

Bestige has allowed me to surround myself with an outstanding leadership team and they have been a great encourager, as well as a company that has the funds that allow us to grow. Now that we have a core team, plus financial strength, and have built out a strong plan, we’re ready to execute. And when you talk about growth, to us, it’s more than just rooftops. We’ll have growth organically. Each location is becoming more profitable. We’re looking at ways to use technology. We’re listening to our customers. They want to be mobile. They want to make appointments online. They want digital (vehicle) inspections. We want to deliver what our customers want.

The last two years have been monumental, but looking forward to the next four years ... the sky’s the limit. ■

Photo: Burt Brothers Tire & Service Inc.

Will You Take Home The Mr. Tire/Big 3 Tire Commercial Tire Dealer Of The Year Award This Year?

The Mr. Tire/Big 3 Tire Commercial Tire Dealer of the Year Award is designed to recognize the tire dealership that is quite simply “The Best” among independent commercial tire shops. K&M Tire has partnered again with Modern Tire Dealer to bring you the 8th annual Commercial Tire Dealer of the Year Award. The winner will be announced this January at the 2025 K&M Tire Dealer Conference in Columbus, Ohio.

Winner Receives:

 $2,000 in cash.

 $1,000 towards the charity of their choice.

 $1,000 towards a physical improvement project at their dealership.

 Trophy along with the distinction of being the Mr. Tire/Big 3 Commercial Tire Dealer of the Year.

 A feature story on the winning Commercial Dealer in a custom publication distributed at the K&M Tire Dealer Conference.

Nominations* will open July 1st, 2024 and will be accepted through September 30th, 2024. Please register by visiting the online registration site www.mrtirebig3tirectd.com and nominate your dealership today!

*This contest is for all eligible Mr. Tire and Big 3 Tire dealers only. Winner will be announced during the 2025 K&M Tire Dealer Conference in Columbus, Ohio!

2024 Winner Weaver’s Tire Service of Northumberland, Pennsylvania

Focus on Dealers

Two ‘birds,’ one location

TIRE SOURCE USES NEW CORPORATE OFFICE AS WAREHOUSE SPACE

TMadison Gehring

om White and TJ White of Tire Source said they had been looking for a new warehouse location for some time when a unique opportunity fell into their lap.

Two of the six-location dealership’s vendors are headquartered within the same plaza in North Canton, Ohio.

At an open house event for one of the companies, Tom, the owner of Tire Source, and TJ, Tire Source’s general manager, voiced the need for warehouse space.

They were pointed to the empty office space at the end of the plaza that had just gone vacant and was on the market.

Tom and TJ decided to “kill two birds with one stone,” according to Tom, by turning the space into corporate offices and a distribution center.

The father and son duo began renovating the space the day they returned from the 2023 SEMA Show last November.

WAREHOUSE SIDE

Tom and TJ noticed a need for a warehouse location after realizing a common problem at their stores: having to halt production whenever a shipment of tires came in, as everyone had to unload the tires and stock them.

“We would be in our busy time at the end of a business quarter and ... we would have to essentially shut down the stores to bring those tires in and unload them,” says TJ.

The now-renovated space has four offices in its front half: one for Tom; one for TJ; one for Patrick Stuhldreher, Tire Source’s chief operating officer; and one for Mary White, the dealership’s controller.

The back of the facility can store nearly 1,500 tires at once. It has five loading docks

and extra space for additional storage. (The warehouse received its first shipment of tires in January 2024.)

Tom says that the new warehouse will not completely replace the need to stock units at Tire Source’s retail locations.

“Our stores still receive multiple daily deliveries from places like TireHub and U.S. AutoForce,” adds TJ.

“This new warehouse is more to get a bunch of one size of tires at the same time or get a better buy by bringing in one type of tire all at once. We can bring (trucks) in here and we can take 700 to 800 tires at one time and it won’t shut down production at our stores like before,” he explains.

This also allows for bigger shipments to get unloaded at once.

Most Tire Source stores can only take around 200 tires at a time. TJ and Tom

now can send shipments of tires to restock their outlets, as needed.

THE CORPORATE SIDE

“We were also worried about having a new warehouse and having to staff it, but making this our corporate headquarters kind of resolved that problem,” says Tom.

TJ says having the top officers of Tire Source under one roof helps the dealership’s leadership team make decisions faster.

“We were worried how we would manage the stores when we weren’t there, but it’s taught us how to communicate better and let our team be more independent,” he notes.

“We figured it out through trial and error and took some initiative on putting video phones in all store managers’ offices so we can still have those ‘face-to-face’ meetings with them.”

Tom (right) and TJ White of Tire Source turned their new corporate office space into an extra warehouse for restocking their six retail stores across Northeast Ohio.

Photo: MTD

The distribution center has five docks that trucks can pull right up to when dropping off shipments.

Photo: MTD

Tire Source’s new warehouse can hold nearly 1,500 tires.

Photo: MTD

Focus on Dealers

S&S Tire celebrates 50th anniversary

GUINNESS WORLD RECORD

SET AT OPEN HOUSE

More than 600 guests helped S&S Tire celebrate its 50th anniversary at an open house event in the dealership’s hometown of Lexington, Ky.

Attendees had an opportunity to experience a Firestone Indy Car virtual simulator, tour a vendor showcase, take home prizes and giveaways and enjoy local food trucks and live entertainment during the a ernoon-long celebration.

S&S Tire opened its rst location — a retail store — in Lexington in 1974.

“As a third generation, family-owned and operated company, we’ve grown and evolved into a corporation that now encompasses a commercial and wholesale footprint servicing 18 states,” says Brooks Swentzel, president of S&S Tire.

“But Lexington will continue to be home to our family and our business.”

All three generations of the Swentzel family — including S&S Tire’s founder, Paul Swentzel — were on-site for the event.

e dealership also set a new Guinness World Record for “tallest stack of tires” — 26 feet. (An on-site adjudicator from Guinness certi ed the achievement.)

e open house — which also included 15 vendors, including 13 tire manufacturers — was “a fun and memorable way for everyone that has had a part in the success of the company over the years to celebrate together,” said Cindy Osterhage, the dealership’s director of strategic initiatives and communication.

S&S Tire has 15 commercial tire locations and 13 distribution centers.

It is the 73rd largest independent tire dealership in the United States, according to the 2024 MTD 100. ■

Mike Manges

During the event, the dealership set a new Guinness World Record for “tallest stack of tires” — 26 feet. A representative from Guinness certiﬁ ed the achievement.

Photo: S&S Tire

Three generations of the Swentzel family celebrated S&S Tire’s 50th anniversary. (From left to right, Brock Swentzel, president of wholesale; Paul Swentzel, S&S Tire’s founder; Austen Swentzel, vice president of commercial sales; and Brooks Swentzel, S&S Tire’s president.)

Photo: S&S Tire

The Atlas® BP10000X commercial grade 2 post baseplate lift is built for those customers who want to lift heavy vehicles in a low ceiling garage. The BP10 incorporates the popular single point lock release with an overall height of about 9’ 4”. If you need to lift a one ton dually or a Smart Car and have limited ceiling height, this is the lift for your shop.

■ Commercial Grade

■ Baseplate, Open-Top Style Lift

■ Single-Point Lock Release

■ Super-Symmetric Arms

■ Dual Hydraulic Chain-Drive Cylinders Made to ANSI Standard

■ Welded Support Gussets Increase Column Strength

■ Automatic Arm Restraints

■ Powder Coat Finish

■ Free 12 Piece Truck Adapter Set

■ 5 yr Structural, 2 yr Hydraulic Warranty

Focus on Industry

AAPEX/SEMA preparation is underway

TIA CHANGES UP EVENTS FOR 2024

Madison Gehring By

The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show and the Automotive A ermarket Products Expo (AAPEX) are gearing up for the 2024 events in Las Vegas, Nev. Registration is now open for both shows and attendees can expect thousands of vendors to exhibit at the Las Vegas Convention Center, home of the SEMA Show Nov. 5-8, and at AAPEX, which will take place at the Venetian Expo and Ceasars Forum Nov. 5-7. e Tire Industry Association (TIA) is hosting its usual education sessions as part of the Global Tire Expo during the SEMA Show on Tuesday, Nov. 5 and Wednesday, Nov. 6.

TIA is revamping some of its pre-show events in 2024. e board of directors will hold its annual membership meeting and press conference at noon on Monday, Nov. 4 at Planet Hollywood. en, from 6 to 8 p.m. TIA will host a “tire industry networking reception” at Planet Hollywood. e event is complementary, though tickets and reservations are required.

TIA is not electing members to join its Hall of Fame in 2024, and as a result is not hosting an evening awards presentation.

TIA CLASSES

Here’s a look at TIA’s educational o erings during the show. Tuesday, Nov. 5:

• 10 – 11 a.m. Tires at 10: e Next Level of Automotive Tire Service Training

• 10 – 11 a.m. Truck Tires at 10: Truck Tire In ation Safety

• 2 – 3:30 p.m. Tires at 2: Successful Tire Dealers Share eir Secrets

Wednesday, Nov. 6:

• 10 – 11 a.m. TPMS at 10: Understanding the Basics of TPMS

• 10 – 11 a.m. Truck Tires at 10: Demounting and Mounting Truck Tires with TPMS

• 2 – 3:30 p.m. Tires at 2: Risk Management in a Retail Tire Dealership

AAPEX

AAPEX o cials say there are already more than 5,600 booths lined up that will be on the tradeshow oor. And new in 2024, the show will expand into Caesars Forum, which is accessible via a footbridge from e Venetian Expo.

e tradeshow oor will feature “an expanded EV experience,” while an entire “EV Stage” will be dedicated to training sessions and presentations that cover EVs from all angles.

Another new stage will highlight advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) including the products involved, plus training, trends and insights.

Level one of e Venetian Expo will cover all facets of automotive service and repair in full-size service bays with functioning vehicle li s and equipment. Tires, tools and equipment, diagnostic solutions and EVs and hybrid vehicles will all have a home here throughout the show.

In 2023, the SEMA Show was the largest convention held in the city, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The SEMA Show and AAPEX will return to Las Vegas in November.

Photo: MTD

YO U R B E S T M OV E

Products

Apollo rolls out cargo tire

Apollo Tyres Ltd. has launched the Vredestein Comtrac Cargo A/S tire, which has been designed for delivery vehicles. The new tire features durable construction, including high-tensile steel belts for more rigidity and strength and its internal structure is built on dual-ply, high-tenacity polyester. Other features of the tire include an optimized tread pattern for grip in light winter conditions; circumferential and transverse grooves to reduce hydroplaning risk; and more.

APOLLO TYRES LTD.

www.vredestein.com

Nitto expands Grappler line

Nitto Tire U.S.A. Inc. has announced its new Terra Grappler G3, which will be available this month. It features a 3-Peak Mountain Snowﬂake rating and comes with the highest limited treadwear warranty offered for a Grappler tire. The Terra Grappler G3 boasts a new tread pattern and dual sidewalls for increased performance. The new tire will have 47 sizes launching in 2024 and will ﬁ t wheels ranging from 16 inches to 22 inches in diameter.

NITTO TIRE U.S.A. INC. www.nittotire.com

Turbo launches RBP X/T RX tire

The new Rolling Big Power Repulsor X/T RX extreme all-terrain tire is now available through Turbo Wholesale Tires LLC. The tire, which is backed by a 50,000-mile warranty, ﬁ ts wheels up to 35 inches in diameter and is “suitable for any vehicle in rain, sleet, mud, snow and everything else,” according to Turbo ofﬁcials. The new product “offers dealers who stock and sell our products an even greater opportunity to grow their business.”

TURBO WHOLESALE TIRES LLC www.rbptires.com

Continental all-season ﬁts EVs

The Continental TrueContact Tour54 is an all-season touring tire for passenger and crossover vehicles. It ﬁ ts wheels ranging in size from 15 inches to 20 inches in diameter and features EcoPlus Technology, which provides fuel savings and optimized range, shorter stopping distances on wet roads and extended tread life. It is the ﬁrst Continental tire with the EV-Compatible logo stamped into the sidewall.

CONTINENTAL TIRE THE AMERICAS LLC www.continental-tires.com

Sailun launches Blackhawk R/T

Sailun Tire Americas has released its new Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T tire. Available in the United States in 40 sizes and fi tting wheels ranging from 16 inches to 22 inches in diameter, the Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T has been engineered to deliver optimal off-road traction, as well as a quiet, comfortable ride. The Blackhawk RIdgecrawler R/T also is 3-Peak Mountain Snowfl ake-certifi ed, pinned for studs and comes with a 45,000mile warranty.

SAILUN TIRE AMERICAS www.blackhawktireusa.com

Goodyear releases all-weather tire

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has introduced its new Assurance WeatherReady 2 all-weather tire. It’s 3-Peak Mountain Snowfl ake-certifi ed and will initially come in 58 sizes, fi tting 16- to 22-inch wheels. It also features Goodyear’s AquaTred Technology with an enhanced tread pattern of sweeping grooves to help expel water and slush; TredLock technology for enhanced traction; and more.

GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. www.goodyear.com

Ford Escape ■ 2023

DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION

TPMS

Function

The TPMS uses four valve stem-mounted sensors to monitor tire pressure. These sensors wirelessly transmit tire pressure data to the Remote Transceiver Module (RTM). The RTM is a radio signal receiver which collects the tire pressure data and sends the information to the Body Control Module (BCM) along a Local Interconnect Network (LIN). All TPMS functions are controlled by the BCM. The BCM compares the tire pressure data sent by the RTM with a programmed tire pressure. This programmed pressure is specified on the VC label and cannot be changed. If the actual tire pressure is less than the programmed tire pressure, the BCM sends a low tire pressure message to the GWM along the HS-CAN1. The Gateway Module (GWM) then sends this message to the IPC

along the HS-CAN3. The IPC responds by illuminating the TPMS warning indicator and displaying a low tire pressure message in the message center. The TPMS sensors are trained (calibrated) to the BCM which records the unique identifier for each TPMS sensor and records the location of each sensor based on the calibration order. The BCM sends messages to the RTM by first sending the information along the HS-CAN1 to the

TORQUE SPECIFICATIONS

GWM which then sends the information to the RTM along the MS-CAN.

The diagnostic scan tool is useful in diagnosing TPMS concerns and may be used to verify the accuracy of the tire pressure data transmitted by the TPMS sensors. This is accomplished by comparing the BCM tire pressure PID data to the actual tire pressure using a digital tire pressure gauge. It is not necessary to train the sensors after a tire rotation on vehicles with the same front and rear tire pressures however, the BCM cannot recognize the sensor identifiers have been moved to different positions and retains the original position information for each sensor.

Wheel Rotation and Sensor Training Techniques

Training known good sensors from another vehicle can help determine whether the

2023 Ford Escape ST-Line Elite

Photo: Ford Motor Co.

concern is with a sensor or the RTM. This technique cannot help determine whether the concern is due to RFI as some RFI source could be preventing the RTM from receiving the tire pressure status from the known good sensors as well as the original sensors. If the RTM in the suspect vehicle cannot train any of the original sensors and, likewise, cannot train known good sensors from another vehicle, then the concern is with the module or RFI and not with the original sensors. The original sensors should not be replaced. If a sensor in a certain location has caused several events, yet the sensor trains and seems to operate normally, moving that particular wheel to a different location on the vehicle is a good way to isolate the concern to a certain sensor/wheel location. Rotate the wheels and road test the vehicle. This can be done in an attempt to replicate the concern and help determine if the concern followed the sensor or remained in the original sensor location. If the vehicle has been stationary for more than 30 minutes, the sensors go into a “sleep mode” to conserve battery power and need to be “woken up”

so they transmit the latest tire pressure information to the RTM.

Training Sensors in a Different Order

If the first sensor fails the TPMS training procedure, the BCM aborts the entire procedure. Starting the training procedure at a different wheel is a technique that can be used to determine if the remaining sensors can train to the module. This can help save time determining if one sensor is damaged, other sensors are having concerns or if the BCM is experiencing training difficulties with a certain TPMS sensor location.

TPMS ACTIVATION

1. Turn the ignition switch to the ON position.

2. Position the special tool against the Left Front (LF) tire sidewall at the tire valve stem.

3. Press the test button on the special tool to activate the sensor. Activate the sensor at least two times.

4. Repeat these steps for the remaining tires.

TIRE PRESSURE SENSOR REMOVAL AND INSTALLATION

DISASSEMBLY

Failure to follow the instructions below may result in damage to the TPMS. The TPMS sensor is mounted to the valve stem. Removal of the valve stem requires demounting the tire from the wheel and removal of the TPMS sensor. Use only a digital tire pressure gauge any time tire pressures are measured to ensure accurate values are obtained. 1. Remove the wheel and tire. (The valve stem is connected to the TPMS sensor. Do not pull the valve stem from the wheel, or damage to the sensor will occur.) If a new TPMS sensor is being installed, remove and discard the valve stem-to-sensor screw and the sensor.

2. Remove the valve stem core and fully deflate the tire.

TPMS

Do not allow the tire beads to move beyond the wheel mid-plane (middle of the wheel) when separating the beads from the wheels; damage to the TPMS sensor may occur.

Tire and valve stem position is critical to prevent damage to the TPMS sensor when using a paddle-type bead separator. Some machines may have a nylon roller bead separator at the 12 o’clock position instead of the paddle-type bead separator at the 3 o’clock position.

3. For a paddle-type tire machine, position the valve stem at the 12 o’clock or 6 o’clock position and the paddle at the 3 o’clock position. (Figure 1) For a roller-type tire machine, align the valve stem with the roller at any position. If bead separation is difficult to achieve using the nylon roller bead separators due to high anchoring force between the tire and the wheel; the paddle-type bead separator may be a more e ective method.

Index-mark the valve stem and wheel weight positions on the tire.

4. Place the wheel and tire assembly on the turntable of the tire machine with the valve stem at the 11:30 position and the machine arm at the 12 o’clock position and demount the outer bead from the wheel. (Figure 2)

5. Reset the wheel and tire assembly on the turntable of the tire machine with the valve stem at the 11:30 position and the machine arm at the 12 o’clock position and demount the inner bead from the wheel.

A new valve stem must be installed whenever a new tire or wheel is installed.

6. Remove and discard the TPMS sensorto-valve stem screw. Separate the TPMS sensor from the valve stem. (Figure 3) Use care not to damage the wheel surface when removing the valve stem. When installing a new wheel, always install a new valve stem and sensor screw. Reuse the TPMS sensor from the previous wheel if possible. e TPMS will not have to be trained if the sensor is reused. If the TPMS sensor is being reused, inspect it for damage and install a new sensor as necessary.

7. Discard the speci ed component. Use the General Equipment: Wooden Block. (Figure 4)

To prevent TPMS sensor and valve stem damage, the valve stem must be installed onto the TPMS sensor and then installed into the wheel as an assembly.

8. Position the new valve stem onto the TPMS sensor and install the new screw. (Figure 5)

ASSEMBLY

It is important to pull the valve stem and TPMS sensor assembly through the wheel hole in a direction parallel to the valve stem hole axis. If the assembly is pulled

2023 Ford Escape ST-Line Elite

Photo: Ford Motor Co.

Figure 2.

Figure 6.

Figure 7.

Figure 1.

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

Figure 3.

Photos: Mitchell 1

through at an angle, damage to the valve stem and sensor assembly may occur.

Use care not to damage the wheel surface when installing the valve stem and TPMS sensor assembly.

Lubricate the valve stem with soapy water and install the valve stem and TPMS sensor assembly into the wheel using a block of wood and a suitable valve stem installer.

1. Use the General Equipment: Wooden Block (Figure 6)

Lubricate the tire beads using a suitable fast-drying, corrosion-inhibiting tire bead lubricant. Do not mount the tire at this time.

2. Position the wheel on the turntable of the tire machine, then lubricate and position the bottom bead of the tire on the wheel.

3. Position the wheel to align the valve stem with the machine arm, at the 6 o’clock position, and mount the bottom bead of the tire (Figure 7)

4. Reposition the wheel to align the valve

stem with the machine arm at the 6 o’clock position, and mount the top bead of the tire.

Use only the digital tire pressure gauge any time tire pressures are measured to be sure that accurate values are obtained.

Proceed to the next step if the tire beads do not seat at the specified inflation pressure.

5. Inflate the tire to the pressure specified on the VC label located on the driver door or door pillar.

If there is a need to exceed the maximum pressure indicated on the sidewall of the tire in order to seat the beads, follow all steps listed below. Failure to follow these steps may result in serious personal injury.

• Relubricate the tire bead and wheel bead seat area.

• Install a remote valve and pressure gauge.

• Wear eye and ear protection and stand at a minimum of 12 feet away from the wheel and tire assembly.

• Inflate the tire using the remote valve and tire gauge until the beads have seated or until the pressure gauge is 20 psi more than maximum inflation pressure on tire sidewall. If beads have not seated, deflate the tire and proceed to the next step.

• Place the wheel and tire assembly in an OSHA-approved tire safety cage.

• Inflate the tire using the remote valve and pressure gauge until the beads have seated or until the pressure gauge is 40 psi more than maximum inflation pressure on the tire sidewall. Do not exceed 40 psi above the maximum pressure on tire sidewall. Install a new tire if the beads do not seat at this pressure.

6. Install the wheel and tire. ■

Information for this column comes from the tire pressure monitoring systems data in ProDemand, Mitchell 1’s auto repair information software for domestic and import vehicles. Headquartered in San Diego, Mitchell 1 has provided quality repair information solutions to the automotive industry since 1918. For more information, visit www. mitchell1.com.

Ad Index

When you contact one of our advertisers please be sure to mention you saw their ad in Modern Tire Dealer

ADVERTISER PAGE WEBSITE

ACDC 62 www.fixhybrid.com

Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance Inc. 95 www.amazingnewride.com

Alligator 105 www.alligator-tpms.com

American Omni Trading 99 www.americustire.com

Andreoli Software 80 www.hitssoftware.com

Atlas Automotive Equipment 97 www.atlasautoequipment.com

Atturo Tires 5 www.atturo.com

Autel 91 www.autel.com

Bandit Tires 17 www.bandittires.com

Bartec TPMS 103 www.bartecusa.com

BKT USA Inc. 11 www.bkt-tires.com

Bridgestone Tire 13 www.bridgestonetire.com

Continental Corporation 60 www.continentalaftermarket.com

DRC Tires 59 www.drc-tires.us

Fortune Tires FC Tip, 77 www.fortunetireusa.com

Foxwell Technology 98 www.foxwelltech.us

General Tire 15 www.generaltire.com/promotion

Gaither Tool Company Inc. 65 www.gaithertool.com

Hunter Engineering Company 71 www.hunter.com/maverick

K&M Tire 79 www.kmtire.com

Kenda Tires USA IBC www.kendatire.com

Kex Tire Repair 89 www.kextirerepair.com

Linglong Americas Inc. 7 www.linglongtire.com

Maxxis Tires 81 www.maxxis.com

Mighty Auto Parts 63 www.mightyautoparts.com/ brightline

Milton Industries 76 www.miltonindustries.com

Mr. Tire/Big 3 Tire 93 www.mrtirebig3tirectd.com

Nitto Tire U.S.A. Inc. OBC www.nittotire.com

Nokian Tyres 75 www.nokiantyres.com/rebates

North American Bancard 87 www.nynab.com

Prometeon Tyre Group 83 www.prometeon.com

Radar Tires 9 www.radartires.com/premium

Ranger Products 19, 101 www.rangerproducts.com

Sailun Tire Americas 66-67 www.sailuntireamericas.com

ADVERTISER PAGE WEBSITE

Tekmetric 61 www.tekmetric.com

TEXA USA 69 www.texausa.com

Tireco Inc. 73 www.milestartires.com

Transamerica Tire Company Ltd. IFC www.predatortires.com

Vredestein Tires 20-21 www.vredestein.com

ZC Rubber America Inc. 85 www.arisuntires.com

TIRE DEALER OF THE YEAR AD INDEX

American Omni Trading 47 www.american-omni.com

Autel 49 www.autel.com

AutoZone Inc. 44 www.autozone.com

Bridgestone/Firestone CFNA 27 www.cfna.com

Cintas 51 www.cintas.com

Convirza 30 www.convirza.com

Dealer Development Group 50 www.d2ddevelopmentgroup.com

Gaubert Oil 57 www.gaubertoil.com

Hunter Engineering Company 39 www.hunter.com

Independent Tire Dealers Group LLC 53 www.itdgusa.com LTASA 45 www.ltasa.org

Michelin North America Inc. 37 www.michelin.com

Mighty Auto Parts 55 www.mightyautoparts.com Myers Tire Supply 29 www.myerstiresupply.com

NAPA Auto Parts 41 www.napaonline.com National Tire Wholesale 25 www.ntw.com

Nitto Tire U.S.A. Inc. 43 www.nittotire.com Pirelli Tire 35 www.pirelli.com Podium 36 www.podium.com

RoadX Tires 33 www.roadxtires.com

Texhoma Tiren Buyers Inc. 40 texomagroup@texoma.com

TireHub 48 www.tirehub.com

U.S. AutoForce 31 www.usautoforce.com

WHEN THE DUST SETTLES, THE CHOICE IS CLEAR.

KLEVER A/T2

• Series: 85, 80, 75, 70, 65, 60, 55, 50

• Sizes: 20, 18, 17, 16, 15

• Load Ranges: E, C

• Speed Ratings: R, S, T

• 3-Peak Mountain/ Snowflake Certified

with

Red Lettering

KLEVER R/T

• Series: 80, 75, 70, 65, 55

• Sizes: 22, 20, 18, 17, 16

• Load Ranges: D, E, F

• Speed Rating: R

• Triple Threat 3-ply sidewall

• Studable

• 6 sizes available with Raised Red Lettering KLEVER M/T2 NEW

KLEVER M/T2

• Series: 85 — 60 & Floatation

• Sizes: 22, 20, 18, 17, 16, 15

• Load Ranges: C, D, E, F

• Speed Ratings: Q, R

• Triple Threat 3-ply sidewall

• 6 sizes available with Raised Red Lettering