Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/328077
MTD June 2014 Truck tires go to California or states close to California, and they haul product back to Michigan. Tose guys are now trying to be in compliance with SmartWay more and more." Langerak says his feet managers report that over the last 10 years, there has been a trend toward feets performing more of their own services. Tat includes tire service. To address that issue, Wonderland Tire ofers customized, full-service programs. "We go in several days a week at certain times of the day, and we do a full visual inspection of the tires for fats, low tread and low air pressure; pull anything of for repair or replacement; fll out the paperwork; do the reporting for them; and do all the retreading and repairing, rim refnishing, wheel polishing and whatever else the customer needs." At Maine Commercial Tire, McCurdy says his focus has been on helping his feet customers "do the math" and look at cost-per-mile rather than tire price alone. "We've forced this issue on some feets by saying, 'Look, you're losing half your mileage on a steer tire by not buying a quality tire. Let us do feet inspections, let us do a cost- per-mile analysis for you and we can show you where you can save money by using a beter-quality product.' "We go out there and say, 'Let us take you out of the tire business. You don't know as much as we do about tires. Let us be your tire guy. I guarantee you we'll save you money.' Usually that works." When it comes to servicing feets, the key is performing more yard work, says Bowman. "We are seeing our feet customers demand more types of service from us now. We're doing more yard work for them on the weekends to identify their tire issues. Yard work includes checking the tire pressure, checking all the vehicles and making sure the tires are matched up correctly. A lot of times a tire is damaged and the drivers don't know that." Bowman also gives his feets "beter bang for their buck" by ofering a wheel reconditioning program, performing feet surveys and doing tire rotations. "We match out their tires. We do trailer inspections, glass replacement and glass repair. It keeps their trucks road worthy and helps them maintain their maintenance ledgers. "We always had been able to ofer these services, but we're seeing more and more demand for these services in the past four or fve years." HD pickups, China, price Wonderland Tire, Belle Tire and Maine Commercial all experienced reduced sales due to a tough winter. Wonderland Tire and Belle Tire expect 2014 sales to be up over 2013; Maine Commercial expects a fat 2014. Te dealerships are also seeing some of the same trends. "We're seeing a trend currently of contractors and the guys that are using the one-ton pickup trucks going from a light-duty one-ton to a heavy-duty one-ton," says Wonderland's Langerak. "Tey are going from a Ford F-350 to an F-550 and even F-650 because they were overloading the lighter-duty trucks and they want to be in compliance. Because of that, we're seeing a trend away from 16- and 17-inch to 19.5-inch. " With commercial light truck tires, we're seeing a trend A look at popular sizes Sizing up medium and commercial LT tires We asked Belle Tire Distributors Inc., Maine Commercial Tire and Wonderland Tire Co. what their top three most popular selling sizes are for medium-duty and commercial light truck tires. How do these sizes stack up to the Rub- ber Manufacturers Association's (RMA) list of the most popular replacement sizes in 2013? Medium-duty Comm. light truck Belle Tire 1. 11R22.5 1. LT225/75R16 2. LP11R22.5 2. LT245/75R16 3. 255/70R22.5 3. LT265/75R16 Maine Commercial 1. 11R22.5 1. LT245/75R17 2. 11R24.5 2. LT265/70R17 3. 295/75R22.5 3. LT225/75R16 Wonderland Tire 1. 295/75R22.5 1. LT245/75R16 2. 275/80R22.5 2. LT225/70R19.5 3. 11R22.5 3. LT225/75R16 RMA 1. 295/75R22.5 1. LT245/75R16 2. 11R22.5 2. LT265/75R16 3. 11R24.5 3. LT265/70R17 Quik-Link: 800-687-1557 ext. 17123 40