Will duties cause shortage of TBR tires?

www.tirebusiness.comApril 15, 2019

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ATD’s Tire Pros unveils several initiatives at National Conference

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Giti plans to reinvigorate GT Radial brand in N.A.U.S. factory to ramp up production, launch several new tire lines

RICHBURG, S.C.As the new kid in the North Ameri-

can manufacturing neighborhood, Giti Tire Manufacturing (USA) Ltd. has ambitious plans to make its mark in the regional tire market.

Since the groundbreaking four years ago for its 1.7-million-sq.-ft. facility in Richburg, the subsidiary of Singapore-headquar-tered Giti Tire Group began producing tires in late 2017, hired more than 700 employees and has been ramping up production for new lines of tires.

“This facility is half of what we want,” said Hank Eisenga, vice pres-ident of manufacturing. “So our in-tent is to take and double this facility as quickly as we can.”

The plant, Giti’s most state-of-the-art facility, is producing about 8,000 tires per day with a capacity for 10 million tires per year.

“Our intention is to get there as quickly as we can,” he added.

The plant began by producing Dextero-brand passenger car tires

for Walmart Inc. stores and now also is producing the newly introduced GT Radial Maxtour LX for CUVs and cars.

“We have plans over the next � ve years to introduce new products ev-ery year out of this plant,” Giti North America CEO Tim Fulton said during a media tour of the plant in March.

“We’ll use the manufacturing ca-pabilities of this plant as the principal source for our U.S. products, comple-mented by the factory in Indonesia to provide the full range of sizes.”

Giti plans to introduce three prod-uct lines in 2019 to help it build the GT Radial brand: The Maxtour LX focuses on

the grand touring segments — pas-senger cars with high-speed ratings and larger rim diameters, as well as a heavy focus on CUVs. The Adventuro HT will be

launched this summer. The plant has started manufacturing some sizes of the LT/SUV tire, while other sizes will be built in the P.T. Gajah Tunggal plant in Indonesia. The Maxmiler Pro commercial

tire is being delivered to distribution centers under a soft launch. Limited sizes of this line will be built in Indo-nesia to cater to what Giti called an un-derserved segment of the market.

“We are in the early stages of re-building the GT Radial brand. The last three years have impacted us severely in our ability to supply tires to our deal-ers,” said Jim May� eld, senior execu-tive vice president of sales and market-ing, referring to increased U.S. tariffs and antidumping duties imposed on tires imported from its China plants.

“Those days are over. The company has � gured out what our go-forward strategy is and it’s time to start connect-ing to consumers again and bringing them the message of some great tires that we’re going to be bringing to mar-ket and selling. We’re going to utilize social media in a very strong way to make that connection,” he said.

According to Giti, the new Maxtour LX is priced lower than its bench-marked brand competition: Continen-tal, Cooper, Nexen and Hankook.

“The reality of the market today is that our brand is not well known.

Expansion gets A-OK

VANCOUVER, British ColumbiaOK Tire Stores Inc. is commit-

ting $75 million (C$100 million) over the next � ve years to expand its distribution capabilities across Canada to support its drive to recruit new franchisees and grow market share.

The expansion project — the most signi� cant in the company’s 66-year his-tory — will add more than 500,000 square feet to OK Tire’s network of 11 region-al distribution centers and provide a more robust online platform for the member-owned com-pany to compete more effectively in e-commerce.

“Thanks to our dealers, we areexperiencing phenomenal and con-sistent growth the past few years in our network on both the commercial and retail side,” OK Tire President and CEO Jim Caldwell said.

The OK Tire franchise network has been growing by the past few years

about 30 locations a year, Mr. Cald-well said, a pace the franchisor ex-pects to continue for the coming � ve years or so. The network stood at 323 locations in early April.

“We are changing our business model to provide our dealers with everything

they require to serve our cus-tomers’ automotive needs better. Today’s announcement marks the beginning of a new OK Tire as Canada’s premier tire and auto service company.”

In addition to expanding and improving the group’s physical assets, OK Tire is working on its digital plat-forms as well with a goal of

creating an online customer experi-ence that parallels what customers get in the physical stores.

“Our objective is to future-proof our business,” Chief Operating Of� cer Mi-chael Rutherford said, “which is why we are installing state-of-the-art dis-tribution systems at our new facilities.

“We will be able to carry more products and service our retail

By Kathy [email protected]

OK Tire is laying foundation for growth through mid-2020s

Giti Tire's plant in Richburg, S.C., is ramping up production of passenger and light truck tires.

OK Tire Stores expects to add 30 stores a year through the mid-2020s.SEE GITI, PAGE 7

SEE OK, PAGE 26

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17 Bridgestone launches ‘FleetsWe Depend On’ retreading education campaign

14-15 North America’slargest commercial dealerships chart

10 Mergers/acquisitions high-light 2018/19 commercial sector developments

Tire Business Special Report

CommercialTire& RetreadingReport

18-19 North America’s largestretreaders chart

Caldwell

By Bruce [email protected]

Will duties cause shortage of TBR tires?USTMA forecasts medium-duty product shipments to drop in 2019

Will the newly imposed countervailing and antidumping import duty orders on truck and bus tires from China lead to

shortages of tires and/or rising prices? That scenario seems to be more than likely, ac-

cording to various sources contacted by Tire Busi-ness. The big question, however, is: To what extent?

The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association may have presaged a product shortage inadvertently with its latest industry shipment report, issued March 5, which projected a 6.8-percent drop in

medium-duty truck/bus shipments this year. The drop, which translates to 1.5 million units,

is tied primarily to the anticipated impact of the higher import duties on China, the No. 1 source of imported truck tires.

Truck tire imports from China last year soared 42.1 percent to 9.22 million units, or more than half of all imports. The increase, however, was in� ated by importers’ placing extra orders toward year-end to get product on-shore prior to the Trump admin-istration’s threatened 15-percent tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of goods from China.

While the administration eventually postponed

those tariffs, the moves proved providential when the Department of Commerce handed down in February its decision to impose countervailing and antidumping duty orders on truck and bus tires from China, sources said.

The surplus inventory of these “tariff-beater” imports on hand could serve to � ll the gap, at least temporarily, for any shortfalls in new imports, sources indicated.

At this point it’s still speculation as to how much the duties — ranging from 20.98 to 63.34 percent countervailing and 9 to 22.57 percent

SEE DUTIES, PAGE 26

By Bruce Davis [email protected]

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IndustryNewsTIRE BUSINESS, April 15, 2019 • 3Visit us on the web at www.tirebusiness.com

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NHTSA: Electronic tire IDs ‘technologically’ feasible WASHINGTON

The National Highway Traf�c Safety Admin-istration (NHTSA) has determined that it is “tech-nologically feasible” for tire makers to include elec-tronic tire identi�cation data in new tires, but it likely will require additional industry effort and possible regulatory action to ensure the use of a single type of technology and standard information format.

NHTSA’s �ndings are included in report to Con-gress, “Electronic Tire Identi�cation Study,” and based on data gathered over the past three-plus years, since the passage of the Fixing America’s Sur-face Transportation (FAST) Act in December 2015.

The FAST Act included provisions that required the Secretary of Transportation to determine the feasibility of requiring all manufacturers of tires subject to U.S. laws governing the sale of tires to include electronic identi�cation in every tire and ensure that the same type and format of electronic information technology is used on all tires.

Having such electronic ID methods available could aid the effectiveness of the tire registration and recall process, NHTSA said stakeholders in the issue agreed.

NHTSA’s study identi�ed two technologies in use for tire electronic identi�cation — RFID (radio frequency identi�cation) tags and 2D barcodes — and found that either or both of these technologies could be used to implement electronic Tire Identi�-cation Number (TIN) information on all new tires.

While the technologies identi�ed have the abil-ity to accomplish electronic tire identi�cation, NHTSA said, it was unable to determine the long-term durability of these technologies.

The study concluded that achieving a standard information content and format for the data would be possible and feasible, with including the TIN data locally within the ID tag considered the ef�-cient method.

Since TINs follow a standard format, encoding the TIN directly in the identi�cation tag would en-sure a standard data format, NHTSA said.

The agency added it did not perform a full cost/bene�t analysis of implementing this solution.

Bridgestone closes 13 Firestone retail stores in UtahSALT LAKE CITY

Bridgestone Retail Operations (BSRO) has closed 13 of its 14 Firestone Complete Auto Care stores in the greater Salt Lake City area, reported-ly due to the expiration of a master lease covering the properties.

Bridgestone declined to comment on the reason or reasons for the closings. Local news media re-ported the cause was due to the lease situation.

The company has one remaining Firestone Complete Auto Care store in Utah, in West Jor-dan, and Bridgestone is urging customers to seek out one of its 150 af�liated dealers in Utah for service. Consumers can call 844-293-7514 to �nd an af�liated dealer in the area, BSRO said.

Among larger Bridgestone-af�liated retailers in the area are Burt Brothers Tire with 11 stores and Commercial Tire Inc. with �ve locations.

In a prepared statement, BSRO said it “continu-ally assesses its portfolio to ensure we are meeting the needs of consumers across our nationwide net-work of 2,200 stores. After a thorough evaluation, BSRO has made the dif�cult decision to close 13 Firestone Complete Auto Care store locations in the greater Salt Lake City area.”

The retail unit of Bridgestone Americas added it is working to “minimize the impact of these clo-sures on employees, customers and the community.”

The company did not say how many employ-ees are affected.

Tire Pros rolls out dealer tools, initiativesORLANDO, Fla.

American Tire Distributors Inc.’s (ATD) Tire Pros marketing group unveiled several initiatives during its recent National Business Conference that are designed to help dealers in-crease store traf�c, improve ef�ciency and maximize pro�tability.

ATD executives, including Presi-dent and CEO Stuart Schuette, joined Tire Pro dealers for the event, where presenters emphasized how to leverage new tools and technologies that they said will help dealers “choose to win” in a rapidly changing marketplace.

“Consumers will drive our future,” Ryan Marsh, chief growth and inno-vation of�cer at ATD, told the group

during the meeting. “The choices we make today will

ensure that Tire Pros and our fran-chisees are ideally positioned for the ways that consumers shop, including how they select their tire and automo-tive service retailer. We believe that there is so much at stake, but impor-tantly, we believe that we can’t do this without one another. We are choosing to invest and to win together.”

Mr. Schuette presented an over-view of several initiatives the distrib-utor will launch in 2019 to leverage technology and data in order to sup-port its customers, particularly Tire Pros franchisees.

Brian Billick, who coached the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl win in 2001, shared the message of

working as a team.“There are three things that make

up any team or organization: people, structure and chemistry,” Mr. Billick said. “You have a winning combination in place when you combine the best players — all of you franchisees in the audience — with the winning game plan that Tire Pros is outlining today.”

Among the topics discussed at the conference were:

• Continuing the “Hassle-Free. Guaranteed” national advertising cam-paign, supported by digital and online paid media, which was launched in 2018.

According to Tire Pros, the cam-paign delivered more than 50 million targeted impressions, and visits to TirePros.com increased sixfold over

the last year. The “Find a Dealer” page views increased seven times.

Executives told dealers that this year’s campaign will continue to be an

important part of the national and local marketing strategy, emphasizing tar-geted, paid media strategies that they

Exxpress Tire talks strategyNOORD, Aruba

Dunn Tire L.L.C.’s Exxpress Tire Delivery unit is using analytics and a recently conduct-ed survey of its wholesale tire customers as a guide to help it grow and enhance service and ef�ciency.

The goal of the research is to provide a bet-ter understanding of the tire marketplace and of customers’ needs, improve operational ef�-ciency and aid in the development of a plan for sustainable growth, company of�cials told tire and car dealer customers attending the Exxpress Tire Delivery Dealer Trip, March 7-11, in Aruba.

This effort comes at a time of rapid evolution in the retail tire market, increased use of technol-ogy to sell and market tires, ongoing tire deal-ership consolidation and growing competition from franchise car dealerships and other large tire chains, Steve Clave, managing director, whole-sale operations, for Dunn Tire, said during a pre-sentation at the trip’s business meeting.

“The game has changed,” he said. “We are going to have to embrace these changes mov-ing forward.”

To better understand how Exxpress Tire is performing, the company surveyed its 4,000 customers, getting a response rate of 5 per-cent, Mr. Clave said.

Questions focused on the performance of Exxpress Tire delivery drivers and customer representatives, handling of delivery issues, whether customers would recommend Exxpress Tire to others and the company’s overall service.

“I was tickled pink,” Mr. Clave said of the mostly positive results. “I’ll be honest, I was scared. ... But the only way we’re going to �nd out, the only way we are going to make im-provements, we went directly to the market and asked the question.”

Exxpress Tire began using analytics last

year to better understand its business, such as its cost per mile, route/truck return on invest-ment, handling frequency, units per person, load times and inventory management for op-timal velocity, Mr. Clave said.

Armed with this information, Exxpress Tire aims to reduce the frequency of times it touches a tire, increase pull accuracy, improve driver effectiveness, do a better job of sharing best practices, streamline processes and make better use of technology to improve decision making, Mr. Clave said.

Looking back at 2018, Mr. Clave said Exx-press Tire had a solid year, growing 7 percent, although it �nished shy of its budgeted goal of 11 percent. Company of�cials attributed this shortfall to a fall-off in sales in December, an occurrence, they said, that impacted everyone in the industry as far as they knew. Growth came in all �ve Exxpress Tire markets: Buffalo, Roch-ester and Syracuse, N.Y., and Pittsburgh and

Erie, Pa. National account business improved 25 percent.

Exxpress Tire continued its growth efforts in the Pittsburgh area, its newest market, during the past year, Mr. Clave said. The company completed the installation of electronic routing in all of its warehouses. Electronic routing is a software application that optimizes data and lays out the most ef�cient routes for the company’s delivery vehicles. The software also allows the measuring of performance and provides opera-tional benchmarks and logistics.

For 2019, Exxpress Tire Delivery is forecast-ing 6.5-percent growth. “The percentage might be down (from 2018), but you’re growing at a bigger number,” said Paul Pittner, Dunn Tire managing director of procurement and supply chain, during an interview with company exec-utives following the business meeting. “It comes down to what we can physically handle.”

By Dave [email protected]

By Don [email protected]

Firestone Complete Auto Care store.

American Tire Distributors Inc.’s Tire Pros marketing group held a trade show as part of its annual National Business Conference, held recently in Orlando.

Steve Clave, managing director, wholesale operations, for Dunn Tire L.L.C., speaks during the Exxpress Tire Delivery business meeting.

SEE TIRE PROS, PAGE 26

SEE EXXPRESS, PAGE 26

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IndustryNews NEWS IN BRIEF

4 • April 15, 2019, TIRE BUSINESS Visit us on the web at www.tirebusiness.com

PORTLAND, Ore.Point S USA has designated 44 Point S

stores as “Top Shop” honorees, determined by a review of each of their independent retail locations.

Each of the stores, part of the 200-plus-store marketing cooperative, will receive the Point S Top Shop for Customer Experience Award.

The Point S Brand Committee was tasked to provide strategic insight by integrating branding, operational and experiential mea-sures across the system while providing in-sights for owners.

The Essential Brands Standards program was established as the committee collabo-rated with Market Force Information L.L.C., a location-level customer experience man-agement business that helps to measure the brand’s reputation and customers’ experi-ence.

Stores could accumulate up to 100 possible points, based on a checklist of customer expe-rience audit questions. Two reviews were con-ducted in stores last year, one in the spring and one in the fall.

“It was great seeing my fellow owners not just adopt the Essential Brand Standards but self-enforce them across their entire opera-tion,” Cory Brown, board member and chair-man of the Brand Protection Committee, said.

A store needed to score in the top percen-tile of all Point S network locations achieving a combined Market Force Report Card score

of 95 percent or higher in order to be desig-nated a Top Shop honoree.

Clint Young, director of sales and business development for Point S, called the feedback “invaluable.”

“We all learned a lot and found areas to im-prove and focus on,” Mr. Young said.

“In fact, it was impressive seeing a 7-per-cent bump in average scores across our entire co-op from the �rst round of surveys to the second.”

Mr. Young said the owners are “leaders in our industry and represent the value Point S

brings to its customers, tire vendors, and are a beacon for other independent tire dealers to join our co-op.”

“The Top Shop winners cap a successful 2018 partnership with Market Force,” Point S CEO Walter Lybeck said.

“This will be a key component continuing into 2019. Market Force has provided location-level customer experience management solutions and actionable feedback for our owners.

“It has reinforced the strength of our brand and our group's commitment to their custom-er’s experience.”

Conti's Sumter plant to produce ContiSeal

SUMTER, S.C.Continental Tire the Americas is

expanding its plant in Sumter to ac-commodate production of the compa-ny’s ContiSeal puncture-sealing and ContiSilent noise-absorbing passen-ger tire lines.

The project will add about 29,000 square feet of space to the approxi-mately 2 million square feet of manu-facturing space under roof in Sumter. Conti did not disclose its investment in the expansion but said the project should create up to 50 jobs dedicated to the new production lines.

Producing these tires in the U.S. will

increase the supply of tires on hand and reduce the turnaround time from order to delivery to customers across the region, Conti said. Conti also pro-duces the ContiSeal and ContiSilent tire lines at two plants in Europe.

“This announcement celebrates Con-

tinental’s trust in the Sumter facility to continue delivering quality products to our customers,” Ahmed Boualam, Sum-ter plant manager, said.

Continental plans to begin install-ing equipment in September and is targeting the start of production for May 2020. The new lines will be rat-ed at 1 million units a year.

Producing these products in the U.S. will expand Conti’s portfolio in the Americas for new mobility solutions, according to Juan Botero, Conti’s vice president of key account management for original equipment passenger and light truck tires.

“We have listened to the needs of our customers and are excited to of-fer products and solutions designed to ensure a quieter and more com-fortable ride, which undoubtedly will become increasingly important as we see more electri�cation and autono-mous vehicles in the market,” he said.

ContiSeal is a technology developed by Continental to seal a damaged tire tread. Launched in 2007, the technol-ogy involves building a layer of seal-ant polymer on the tire’s innerliner that envelops foreign objects, such as nails, and prevents air loss, even if the object is removed.

ContiSilent, launched in 2013, is a tire noise-reducing technology that in-volves the application of a polyurethane foam to the tire’s innerliner, which ab-sorbs interior noise.

Conti will be producing the Conti-Seal tire line at its Sumter, S.C., plant.

Conti’s Thailand tire plant starts production

RAYONG, ThailandContinental A.G.’s car and light truck tire plant

in Rayong has started production on schedule, two years after the company broke ground on the $265 million project.

The plant is designed to produce up to 4 million tires per year for Thailand and the Asia Paci�c region by 2022, Continental said, with up to 900 employees at full production.

The facility — Conti’s sixth tire plant in the Asia/Paci�c region and 20th worldwide — “is an integral part of Continental Tire Division’s ‘Vision 2025’ growth strategy,” outgoing Tire Division Head Niko-lai Setzer said during an inauguration ceremony at the plant.

The unit, he added, improves the balance of Conti-nental’s global manufacturing footprint and strength-ens its production capacities for Asia Paci�c.

“This is not just a milestone,” he added. “With this investment we have built a foundation for our com-mon success, writing together history in the automo-tive industry in Thailand.”

According to the company, the Rayong plant fea-tures “best-in-class” energy ef�ciency standards, machines equipped with technology for sustainable production processes, and highly automated logistics and handling processes for “an ergonomic work en-vironment.”

Rayong is the seventh green�eld plant Continental has opened since 1998.

Point S designates 44 stores as ‘Top Shop’By Don Detore

[email protected]

Fountain Tire CEO Hesje earns Chamber award

EDMONTON, AlbertaFountain Tire CEO Brent Hesje recently

received the Northern Lights Award of Dis-tinction, awarded by the Edmonton Cham-ber of Commerce in recognition of his cor-porate, community and industry leadership.

Mr. Hesje, who has been CEO of Edmon-ton-based Fountain Tire since 2005, has led the company through a period of signi�cant growth.

The company has a history of supporting the United Way, Junior Achievement and local development initiatives in Edmonton.

Last spring, Mr. Hesje was appointed chair of the Automotive Industry Associa-tion of Canada. He is a board member of Fountain Tire and sits on the boards of sev-eral Canadian corporate brands.

Mr. Hesje is the former chair of the boards of directors of the YPO Alberta Saskatchewan Chapter, the Western Cana-da Tire Dealers and The Support Network. He served three terms as chair of the Board of Governors of Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), where he led the largest fundraising campaign in the institu-tion’s history, raising more than $120 mil-lion to develop campus learning spaces.

Linglong breaks ground on tire plant in Serbia

ZRENJANIN, SerbiaChina’s Shandong Linglong Tire Co.

Ltd. has laid a ceremonial corner stone for its green�eld tire factory project in Zrenja-nin, signaling the start of construction for the $994 million project in northern Serbia.

The company said it had secured 320 acres of land in the Zrenjanin Free Trade Zone for the plant, which is to be built in three phases over six years. The plant itself will span 4.24 million square feet, Linglong said.

The plant, to be operated by Linglong In-ternational Europe d.oo. Zrenjanin, is rated at 13.6 million tires per year, comprising: 12 million car tires, 1.6 million truck/bus tires and 20,000 off-the-road tires.

Prinx Chengshan begins Thailand plant construction

CHONBURI, ThailandChinese tire maker Prinx Chengshan

Tire Co. Ltd. — a former Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. joint venture — has broken ground on a $300 million car and truck tire plant in Chonburi that could be operating by mid-2020.

At full capacity, the plant will be rated at 4 million radial passenger and 800,000 radial all-steel truck and bus tires annually, Prinx Chengshan said.

The company said it chose Thailand be-cause of its global free trade policies, access to natural rubber and status as the largest ve-hicle production center in the ASEAN region.

N.J. dealer group to host golf outing May 21

MATAWAN, N.J.The New Jersey State Tire Dealers Asso-

ciation (NJSTDA) will host its annual golf outing May 21 at Knob Hill Golf Club in Manalapan, N.J.

Registration begins at 10:30 a.m., with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. Lunch will be served before the tournament and cocktails and dinner will be served after.

Cost for event is $150 per person when registering in advance. Day-of registration is $200 per person. For more details con-tact Al Breese at 732-887-7281 or Bud Mul-laney at 732-566-1940.

Sponsorships for the event still are avail-able with costs ranging from $100 to $5,000.

PALO CEDRO POINT SPOINT S FLEET AND COMMERCIAL

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ORR'S POINT SGILLS POINT S — ALBANY

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TIRE DEN POINT SPOINT S SMART CHOICE TIRES — SUMNER

POINT S EAST HILL TIREPOINT S — REDDING

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Robert RecchiaChief � nancial of� cer

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Letters to the Editor

Tire Business encourages letters to the editor on any subject of interest to independent tire dealers. Send a letter to: Editor, Tire Business, 2291 Riverfront Pkwy, Suite 1000, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio 44221. Letters also can be emailed to [email protected].

Letters must be signed and may be edited for length and clarity. Please include a daytime phone number for veri� cation purposes. Letters also may be published on TB’s website: www.tirebusiness.com.

OUR VIEW

Forum

A change for the betterCUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio

As I sit in my new of� ce, watching the swift spring � ow of the frigid Cuyahoga River, I am reminded of

one axiom I’ve always tried to live by:Change is good.The view from my of� ce, a few steps from

a balcony overlooking the river, is part of a change I had yet to experi-ence in four-plus decades as a jour-nalist — moving from one venue to another while still employed at the same institution.

I have changed jobs and thus lo-cations, previously, going from a small-town newspaper to a bigger newspaper in a bigger town, then to a third newspaper that serves one of Ohio’s larger cities.

Each work location was marked-ly different, with its advantages — all three were in walking distance of some of the � n-est retail and dining establishments that each city had to offer — and disadvantages — one location was constantly so steamy hot that employees would come to work on nights and weekends in the dead of the Ohio winter dressed in shorts and T-shirts.

On April 1, the staffs of Tire Business and Rubber & Plastics News, both part of Crain Communications Inc., completed a move to a newly renovated location a few miles from our previous home in Akron’s Merriman Valley. The new of� ce, part of a bustling retail/commercial area in Cuyahoga Falls, is smaller, brighter and trendier than the previ-ous space, re� ecting the new realities of our changing work environment.

The move has not been without its chal-lenges. After spending 30 years at our previ-ous location, many of us had to make some dif� cult decisions: What essentials shall we take with us to the smaller location? And, most importantly, what should we purge?

As you might expect, some of us took a quick jog — for others it was more of an en-joyable stroll — down memory lane, as we considered what to do with photos, past is-sues, equipment, of� ce supplies, conference

leftovers and other material that had accu-mulated over the years. Most of the stuff was from another era, tucked away in a drawer, � le cabinet or closet, and hadn’t been ac-cessed in a decade or more.

Over the last month, we � lled and re� lled bins with paper products, sending it to be re-cycled. We packed boxes of essentials to be moved. And we � lled two large dumpsters.

Many of the people listed in the column to the right from within our publications, as well as others from our corporate of� ce IT and facili-ties departments in Detroit, helped to make the transition seamless. A job well done.

Although the move was made over the last week of March, it re-mains a work in progress. Employ-ees continue to get accustomed to the surroundings, while having to concentrate on the immediate and

most crucial task at hand: Providing the lat-est industry news for our online and print publications.

We made this physical move while we re-vamped and updated the look of our publica-tion — including a new nameplate that sits atop our cover and new headline fonts.

And as the last piece of Tire Business tril-ogy, so to speak, we soon will roll out a new look at tirebusiness.com. Look for that be-fore the end of this month.

I share this with you with two purposes in mind.

First, if you are considering a change in venue, or perhaps renovating your current business venue, I strongly encourage you to pursue it if it makes sense from a cost stand-point. A new location, along with a new look, not only serves to reinvigorate your business, but also sparks excitement in your staff and, to some extent, your customers.

Secondly, this is a good opportunity to tell you that we at Tire Business remain commit-ted to providing you, our valued readers, the latest news and information in the tire and auto service industries.

And that reminds me of another axiom:The more things change, the more they

stay the same.

By Don [email protected]

Detore

The onset of tariffs levied on truck and bus tires manufactured in China — a country that provides more than double the amount

of TBR tires to the U.S. than any other country in the world — begs a question that commercial dealers no doubt ask themselves daily:

Is there enough product to satisfy the market?If the answer is yes, and we hope that is the case,

then there is no issue at all. In this still-booming economy, an ample supply means stable prices, robust business and satis� ed customers.

But if the answer is no — and recent data pro-vided by the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Associa-tion (USTMA) seem to suggest that — what does that mean? Will tire prices spike?

The USTMA recently predicted shipments of medium-duty truck/bus tire in the U.S. will drop by nearly 7 percent this year, with the newly im-posed elevated antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese tires being cited as a key factor in the decline.

On the demand side, it appears the trucking in-dustry doesn’t anticipate slowing down anytime soon, although the American Trucking Associa-tions (ATA) reports that last year’s growth in the industry — 6.6 percent — has eased during the � rst quarter of this year.

According to Dawn Brusseau, associate di-rector for commercial vehicle solutions for IHS Markit research, registrations for Class 8 trac-tors increased in 2018, a trend the � rm predicted would continue by this year, growing about 8 per-cent, to 340,000 units.

“Your future is secure. Trucking is only gain-ing in popularity. ... The need for trucking is strong and will continue to be strong within the market,” she said, predicting this year will be a “peak year in the current buying cycle,” as � eets continue to replace aging trucks.

Some tire manufacturers already have begun to react to the high demand/low supply scenario. As of March 5, Bridgestone Corp. increased prices of its Dayton-brand tires, sourced almost exclu-sively from China, by 20 percent. That comes on the heels of a 10-percent price increase initiated last fall.

There is some talk that suppliers ramped up imports of product late last year in anticipation of the duties and more Trump-imposed tariffs. Perhaps that will curtail, or perhaps slow, other manufacturers from increasing prices.

So what does all this mean for your business?The best advice might be to keep a clos-

er-than-usual watch on the market. Talk with your suppliers. Read up on the happenings in Washington.

And in the meantime, let’s hope the nation keeps on truckin’.

Complicatedanswers awaitTBR questions

TIRE BUSINESS, April 15, 2019 • 7Visit us on the web at www.tirebusiness.com

COUNT ON PROVEN EXCELLENCE. COUNT ON SUMITOMO.

Becoming an outstanding commercial tire brand requires excellence in all areas, not just one. Sumitomo’s product quality, application coverage and � ll rate were ranked in the Top 3 by nearly 600 dealers in the last 3 Tire Review annual surveys.* Count on proven excellence, count on Sumitomo. Learn more at SumitomoTruckTires.com.

For what drives you.

*Survey conducted by Marketplace Insights on behalf of Tire Review for its 2018 Brand Study (August 2018 Sourcebook issue).

And most of these brands have much higher recognition. So we know we have to rebuild it,” Mr. May�eld said. “And the way we’re going to do it, we’re going to provide a great value for our dealer customers to be able to make money selling the tire, and then it’s going to be sold in the marketplace at a great value to the consumer.

“So we get our tires into the mar-ket, consumers experience them and, over time, we’ll be able to build the brand the way we need to. As we launch our Aventuro HT, as we launch other GT Radial products, new and exciting products, we’ll build this brand the way we believe it can be built,” Mr. May�eld said.

Automated production The highly automated equipment

in Giti’s state-of-the-art plant en-ables improved accuracy in mixing the compounds and assembling the components, said Phang Wai Yeen, Giti’s executive director of inter-national research and development centers.

“At the end of the day, the �nal part of the components, the �nal part of the performance actual-ly comes from the accuracy of the components, the accuracy of how we actually put the tire through the whole process. ... It is what we call the enabler of the engineer’s dream,” Mr. Yeen said, adding, “You need a state-of-the-art plant where the tire can actually be replicated exactly the way it was designed.”

Even though the plant is highly automated, it still depends on hu-man workers to oversee the opera-tions, according to Mr. Yeen.

“It’s not so simple, even though it’s automated,” he said. “(The tire builder’s) eyes are always on the tire, making sure the machine is actually doing exactly what it is supposed to do. ... It is a skill. That’s why crafts-manship remains the all-important element in tire manufacturing.”

After the tires are transported through the automated building and curing processes, workers visually inspect them at the end of the line before they go to the adjacent ware-house.

The warehouse is stocked with thousands of Maxtour XL tires ready for distribution to North American tire dealerships.

Global R&DAs part of its strategy, Giti re-

located its North American R&D center, responsible for developing products speci�cally for the North American market, from Akron to a building next door to the new tire plant.

This center is linked online with Giti’s other R&D centers in Indone-sia, China, Germany and the United Kingdom so they can share informa-tion and research, Mr. Yeen said.

“So you can say it is local (devel-opment), but it is global. The struc-ture is global,” he said.

“With the R&D here, it is listen-ing to the market. The local team, they grew up here, they live here, they know exactly what is needed, he said. “It will enable the faster de-ployment of the products.

“So effectively, we have what we call a global technology platform,

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

with local deployment. And local deployment means local deployment of the design, local industrialization in the nearest factory in the market.”

Production capacity is shared among Giti’s eight plants in China, the U.S. and Indonesia, so capacity is used where it makes the most sense, he said.

While the U.S. plant will manufac-ture a signi�cant amount of tires for

North America, Giti still will import some product and certain

sizes to meet demand the U.S. plant cannot ful�ll currently and because certain facilities are designed to be more ef�cient in producing certain products and sizes, Giti of�cials said.

“There are not that many tire com-panies in the world that have that capa-bility, so we’re trying to compete with those global players,” Mr. Fulton said. “You’ve got a hundred tire companies

but probably 85 or 90 of those don’t have that capability.”

Giti is the 11th largest tire man-ufacturer globally, based on Tire Business, rankings.

“We’re amongst that very top tier that has that global footprint, glob-al R&D capability, global technol-ogy platform and distributing and manufacturing in three different countries. It’s a big advantage that you have to be able to optimize your global footprint,” Mr. Fulton said.

The plants in China, the U.S. and In-donesia are interlinked, which speeds up the processes and troubleshooting of any problems that arise, he said.

“This is one of the bene�ts of why we feel that this is going to propel the organization’s penetration and participation in the U.S. because we are now actually pretty complete,” Mr. Fulton said.

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Giti Tire of�cials, from left, Phang Wai Yeen, Giti's executive director of international R&D centers; Hank Eisenga, vice president of manufacturing; Tim Fulton, CEO of Giti North America; and Jim May�eld, senior executive vice president of sales and marketing, show off the Richburg plant's ware-house �lled with new Maxtour XL tires.

http://www.sumitomotrucktires.com


AutomotiveService

Kelly Boor, general manager of Sensa-ta Technologies Inc.’s global aftermarket business, which includes Schrader-brand tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) sensors, discusses how new technology will impact the after-market.

Sensata is a $3.5 billion/year global industrial technology company providing sensing solutions and electrical protec-tion for the automo-tive, heavy-duty, off-road, industrial and aerospace markets.

Q: What is Schrader working on now and what technologies is it focusing on?

A: We (OE business) are facing signi� cant discontinuities driven by mega-trends, electri� cation, safety advancements/autonomy as well as a more digital world. Those trends

are impacting all of our end-markets — auto, heavy-duty, industrial, aero-space — in different ways and each of those trends require sensing solu-tions as part of the overall response to those trend-driven requirements. ...

As vehicles become more electri-� ed, Sensata has invested in develop-ing a portfolio of sensing solutions that meet these technology requirements. It is a similar story with TPMS. Sen-sata has a portfolio of sensors used in safety applications and has expanded that portfolio (through the Schrad-er acquisition) to include TPMS. In addition, we have further developed TPMS to address needs beyond auto — i.e. HVOR (heavy vehicle, off road) and the aftermarket.

Tire-pressure-sensing solutions will continue to play a pretty important role in advancing safety, mobility and even energy ef� ciency and fuel econ-omy. In the case of the heavy-vehicle segment, this segment really does care about total cost of ownership. We think that TPMS can play a role in that. It does now and it will continue even more so in the future. ...

We have market-leading OE posi-

tions as well as a strong presence in the aftermarket. That is a great value that Sensata/Schrader brings to the aftermarket — that we have a link to the OE. It gives us a greater insight into what’s coming down the pipeline in terms of products and customer needs that the aftermarket will need to address at some point in the future.

Q: Is there more development to come for the TPMS component?

A: Yes, there will be advancements in the technology itself. We think that the socket has an important role in advancing some of the safety-mobili-ty applications within automotive and even in other end-markets, as well. I do think that there are continued de-velopments, enhancements and more features and data insight that we will be able to give to tire pressure sens-ing solutions in the future.

Q: Are all these TPMS-sensing capabilities leading to use in au-tonomous vehicles?

A: In the case of TPMS, it would continue to play a key role in ad-vancements in safety and mobility

as well as continue to have positive bene� ts towards fuel economy.

Q: Are there other technolo-gies/components you are work-ing on with tire manufacturers?

A: We are always working on new technology that requires information from the road to the vehicle’s systems. That requires not only our own devel-opment but also strong partnerships to provide the right solution for our cus-tomers. As our sensors grow smarter, we learn that we can measure different things around the tire and provide that information in real-time. We are work-ing to make that information not only available to the vehicle, but through our Smart & Connected initiative, to make it available on the cloud.

Q: How will new technology/components impact the auto re-pair industry?

A: I think if I were to take a step back and look at the history of Schrad-er in the aftermarket, Schrader was the � rst to market with the EZ sensor. It was the � rst single SKU program-mable sensor that really made it easy, as its name implies, for our customers to service tires and TPMS.

The customer also bene� ts from SKU reduction and associated inven-tory costs. It was a pretty interesting innovation where we were able to really draw upon our experience on the OE side, where we were already the market leader for tire-pressure sensing for the automotive space, and marry that with the needs of the af-termarket customer.

This really goes back to the bene-� t of Sensata’s market-leading posi-tions in OE on our aftermarket de-velopments. It really means that you are in the conversation with your OE customers as to what features they are incorporating into their speci-� cations in their vehicles and our ability to access that road map and that understanding, because we are all part of the same company.

It really is an advantage for us and is different than some of our pure af-termarket competitors. We’re always looking at what is planned for the OE, what is on our OE team’s roadmap and ensuring that we’re incorporating the OE design and enhancing it because we have the insight into what the af-termarket customer actually needs. Our aftermarket customers value that visibility so that they can better pre-pare themselves and their businesses to support the customer of the future.

We see a general trend in connectiv-ity and data, and we believe that will also hit the aftermarket, more spe-ci� cally the tire. Everything around the tire is being designed to provide electronic data, either through RFID tags, TPMS sensors or both. More recently, some vehicles were released with a feature called “Tire Fill Alert,” where the TPMS sensor detects that the tire is being � lled and the vehicle gives an alert when the recommend-ed pressure is reached. That certainly helps against pressure stations that do not have accurate gauges from incor-rect in� ation.

Some TPMS sensors are also hold-ing information about the tire, such as speed rating, size, etc., allowing the vehicle to make a better decision on safety, comfort and others, know-

ing exactly which tires are mounted.

Q: Will new automotive tech-nology, designed to solve prob-lems, create new ones?

A: Despite our best efforts, there are growing pains and issues we didn’t foresee at the beginning. It’s a natural part of developing new tech-nologies, but managed correctly, can become opportunities.

When TPMS was introduced, a portion of the market saw it as an issue for garages, rather than a val-ue. But, with customize solutions for the aftermarket, like the EZ-sensor, those garages are able to convert this into a better service to their custom-ers, generating more revenue to them.

If you look at TPMS, not only do we have a skilled technical team that is working on R&D and the product de-velopment, we also have a skilled tech-nical services and training team. These folks are literally out with the shop owners, they’re out visiting customers and really capturing their voices.

At the user level, we see the impact of the products that we provide and saying, “Is this really easy to install?” or “Are the instructions clear?” I think down to that level, when we’re having issues, you’re able to feed that back into the product development team as part of the development cycle and you hope you are able to do that on a real-time basis and address more concerns that way or more potential issues that could arise later.

In the case where we have some bumps in the road, something I think we do really well is making sure that we are working with our customers. If the issue impacts a customer, we are there to support them and quick-ly � nd the root cause, diagnose the problem and resolve it.

Q: So would you say it behooves suppliers to provide training as tech-nology becomes more complex?

A: I do think that will continue to be an important part of the after-market. … The aftermarket winners are those that are going to be able to take fairly complicated systems and really do a great job of training and/or enhancing the offering or the product to make it easier for our af-termarket customers to service those vehicles. Training is one of those el-ements and there are different ways you can do that. You can be live and there at the shop, which is kind of hard to do for every one of your cus-tomers, but I certainly think digital and other ways of providing that type of service and information will also become even more important in the future as well.

Q: How should auto repair shops prepare their businesses for upcoming technology?

A: You’ve got time to see how it shakes out on the OE side of things. But again, I think partnering with an aftermarket solutions provider that has both an OE presence as well as an aftermarket presence is really valuable in that case.

Engage — the aftermarket associ-ations are great avenues to gather in-sight; have robust discussions and a channel for that voice to be heard by customers, suppliers and regulatory bodies; networking; and learning.

Boor

Q&ABy Kathy [email protected]

Sensata GM: TPMS technology impacting aftermarket industry

http://www.arisuntires.com

AutomotiveService TIRE BUSINESS, April 15, 2019 • 9Visit us on the web at www.tirebusiness.com

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This old ad-age aptly sums up a sensible

approach to disconnecting batteries from unfamiliar vehicles.

My columns in recent issues of Tire Business (March 4, March 18) describe the potential perils of dis-connecting a battery from a vehicle without providing auxiliary power to it beforehand.

A battery disconnect may erase some of the memory inside on-board computers temporarily, caus-ing strange symptoms after a tech-nician reconnects the battery to the vehicle.

In my March 18 column (Page 7, “Auxiliary power saves vital com-puter memory”), I described a tech-nique for providing auxiliary power to a vehicle prior to disconnecting its battery for any reason.

Some readers have responded to these topics with interesting questions.

First, a fellow asked about the consequences of disconnecting the battery on a 1993 Cadillac that he stored for the winter. An educated guess on my part — a hunch — is that disconnecting the battery on a relatively simple 1993 vehicle shouldn’t cause much trouble.

Of course, he would have to reset the car’s digital clock. Thereafter, this car probably would perform �ne after he drove it for a short time.

However, I’m reluctant to make hard, fast judgments — especially on unfamiliar vehicles. Battery dis-connect has fooled me.

For example, I’m doing homework on a car at a service shop or tire deal-ership. A task requires disconnecting the battery; I gamble that a simplis-tic-looking vehicle won’t suffer if I disconnect its battery without attach-ing auxiliary power to it �rst.

But after I reconnect the car’s battery, the automatic transmission shifts late and harshly.

Then it takes 30 minutes of road testing to normalize the transmission again. This extended road testing en-ables the car’s transmission computer to “re-learn” its normal values for shift timing and shift quality.

Recently, I saw a �ummoxed cus-tomer return to a shop with a 2017 Subaru WRX.

Ordinarily, brie�y touching the power window button in the up di-rection made the window rise com-pletely. Momentarily touching the button in the down direction low-ered the window completely.

But following the repairs the shop performed, this automatic up / down feature didn’t work. Instead, the owner had to hold the button in the up or down direction to raise or low-er the window completely.

Fortunately, a Subaru specialist buddy of mine clued us to a simple reset procedure for the windows’ au-tomatic function following a battery disconnect.

But mind you, this is just one ex-ample on one modern vehicle. What other surprises are out there?

Another reader inquired about con-necting auxiliary power directly to a battery’s terminals instead of the diag-nostic connector under the dashboard.

You see, since 1996, a typical ve-hicle has an industry-standard diag-nostic access connector somewhere under the left side of the dashboard.

The connector’s terminal 4 is chassis ground; terminal 16 is bat-tery power. Adapter cables are avail-

able that neatly and quickly link your auxiliary power source to these terminals inside the diagnostic con-nector — and therefore, to the car’s electrical system. Sliding the appro-priate adapter onto the underdash connector is a snap.

This fellow wanted to connect auxiliary power directly to the bat-tery’s terminals with jumper wires and alligator clamps.

Although this approach is tech-nically correct, it may be awkward and counterproductive. You see, a battery’s location and terminal type (top or side terminal) may make it

dif�cult to keep alligator clips se-curely connected during the battery disconnect / reconnect procedures.

I’ve watched techs accidentally dislodge the alligator clips from the battery terminals during these ma-neuvers.

In my experience, linking auxilia-ry power to the underdash diagnos-tic connector with the appropriate slide-on adapter cable is the easiest, most-secure method.

Dan can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]. His previous columns are available at www.tirebusiness.com.

Dan Marinucci is a freelance automotive service writer and former editor of two automotive service magazines.

Readers react to issues from disconnected batteryBy Dan Marinucci

[email protected]

Disconnecting a battery may erase some of the memory inside on-board computers temporarily.

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http://www.federaltire.com


Plus scrap tire and recycling update

CommercialTire& RetreadingReport

1 — Imports are included in the U.S. replacement market numbers.Sources: U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association; Tire and Rubber Associa-

tion of Canada; U.S. Department of Commerce; Tire & Retread Repair Information Bureau

North American commercial tire snapshotMedium truck/bus tires (000 units)

2016 % Chng 2017 % Chng 2018

U.S. repl. shipments 18,600 5.9% 19,700 8.1% 21,300

U.S. imports1 13,892 5.1% 14,604 17.1% 17,106

Canada repl. shipments 1,862 3.2% 1,922 1.5% 1,951

U.S. OE shipments 5,000 9.7% 5,400 20.4% 6,500

U.S. production 13,700 2.2% 14,000 2.9% 14,400

U.S. exports 2,407 10.5% 2,660 31.2% 3,491

U.S. retread production 14,500 -1.4% 14,300 N.C. 14,300

Light truck (000 units)U.S. repl. shipments 31,900 -2.2% 31,200 1.0% 31,600

U.S. imports1 27,885 -4.3% 26,684 -5.5% 25,220

Canada repl. shipments 3,114 15.0% 3,581 3.5% 3,710

U.S. OE shipments 4,900 9.9% 5,400 3.7% 5,600

U.S. production 28,300 -7.8% 26,100 -3.1% 25,300

U.S. exports 8,666 -4.9% 8,308 9.9% 9,134

Tire Business Special Feature

Yokohama revises expectations at Miss. truck tire plantTOKYO Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. has scaled back

production expectations for its U.S. truck tire factory in West Point, Miss., due to a combi-nation of facility- and personnel-related issues.

The $300 million plant, which opened in 2015 with a nameplate capacity of 1 million medium truck tires a year, was on track to pro-duce only about half of that in 2018, Yokohama said in a stock exchange � ling in late 2018.

In the same document, Yokohama rescaled the plant’s production target by 2021 to 843,000 tires.

Yokohama took a $102 million “asset impair-ment charge” against its third quarter earnings to account for a “reassessment” of the pro� tabili-ty of and business outlook for its Yokohama Tire

Manufacturing Mississippi L.L.C. unit in West Point.

In the document, Yokohama cited a number of reasons for the plant’s performance, includ-ing: Teething problems of “modern and ef� -

cient” production machines; Delayed ramp-up in process capability; Personnel hiring behind plan, in part due

to high turnover rate; and Insuf� cient education and training due to

the turnover rate. In a statement, Yokohama said: “Achieving

pro� tability at the subsidiary has taken longer than management anticipated when production began there, and management has recorded as-set impairment in accordance with a prudent reassessment of the business outlook for the

subsidiary and of the outlook for recovering in-vestment there.”

In the � ling, Yokohama noted that the plant has operated at less than half of its projected output levels since it opened. The issues have contributed to operating losses totaling $164 million compiled by the � rm’s North American operations over the past four years.

“We continue to aggressively address the challenges of running a brand new facility and increasing production output,” YRC said in No-vember. “The facility has all the necessary ele-ments for success — state-of-the-art equipment, a dedicated and highly trained workforce, expe-rienced and skilled management — and we will continue to invest in our technology, our people and our production capabilities to meet our goals”

The company also noted that engineers from

its plant in Mie, Japan — which has the same type of tire-building machines — are engaged in training personnel at West Point.

Prior to taking the asset impairment charge last year, Yokohama dismissed 29 employees at the plant because they did not meet “pre-em-ployment requirements.”

In 2013, Yokohama Tire Corp. donated $500,000 to East Mississippi Community Col-lege and Mississippi State University to help establish worker training-related courses ahead of the plant’s opening.

At the ground-breaking for the plant in 2013, Yokohama executives stated that the 570-acre West Point site could accommodate a plant four times the size of the one being built. An oper-ation that size would require a workforce of up to 2,000 employees.


M&A continues to drive commercial sector Southern Tire Mart, Bauer Built deals headline the consolidation trend

By Bruce Davis [email protected]

AKRON2018/19 will go down in as one of the com-

mercial tire industry’s most active periods in terms of mergers/acquisitions, with as many as 75 points of sale/service and 14 retread plants changing hands over the past 12 months.

Topping the list are Southern Tire Mart’s pending acquisition of 46 GCR Tires & Ser-vice commercial tire locations and six retread plants from Bridgestone Americas Inc. and Bauer Built Inc.’s acquisition of the tire divi-sion of Allied Oil & Tire Co. — seven outlets and one retread plant in � ve states.

Southern Tire Mart’s deal with Bridgestone/GCR will expand STM’s reach to more than

135 commercial tire locations in 14 states and boost annual sales past the $1.7 billion mark, according to John Boynton, who helps oversee the STM business for the business’ owners, Jim and Tom Duff.

STM anticipates some consolidation among its ex-isting locations and those being acquired, Mr. Boyn-ton said, as well as consid-erable growth opportuni-ties, both geographically and product-wise, such as adding OTR sales/service to some traditionally medi-um-truck-oriented locations.

Mr. Boynton — a former Bridgestone/Bandag execu-tive who joined STM last Oc-tober after nearly three years heading up Tredroc Tire Ser-vice — said above all else, Southern Tire Mart considers the people running GCR the No. 1 asset it is acquiring.

“I believe we (STM) will bene� t from learning some of their (GCR) business prac.

tices,” he said, noting that STM expects to bene� t from the knowledge coming on board.

Southern Tire Mart has a long history of growing by acquisition, Mr. Boynton said, so he doesn’t anticipate major problems in inte-grating the GCR activities into STM.

Twenty of the 46 locations being acquired are in Texas, where STM already had a dozen outlets.

Bridgestone/GCR was involved in a few other divestment deals throughout the year, including: The sale of four GCR service locations

and two retread plants in January to Park-house Tire Inc. of Bell Gardens, Calif.; and The sale or closing of 17 stores and

three retread plants in Quebec, including one Bandag plant to Pneus Metro Inc. of Montreal.

Once completed, the pending deal with Southern Tire Mart will shrink GCR to 130-

plus locations and 18 retread plants in the U.S. and Canada, down from 200-plus sales/ser-vice outlets and 29 retread plants at the busi-ness unit’s height several years ago.

For its part, Bridgestone said the deal re-� ects its position of continually evaluating its distribution strategies to ensure it is meeting the needs of its � eet customers through both GCR stores and independent dealers.

Scott Damon, president, Commercial Group, U.S. and Canada for Bridgestone Americas, said, “We believe partnering with Southern Tire Mart allows us to further strengthen our commercial tire distribution network and position the growth of our brands and � eet solutions.”

In Southern California, Parkhouse Tire has consolidated the GCR business it took over, closing three of the four GCR locations

it acquired — in Fontana, Norwalk and Par-amount — and keeping open the one in San Diego along with a retread plant in Fontana. Parkhouse took on 75 GCR employees.

Bauer Built’s acquisition of Allied Oil’s tire business — a deal that includes a Michelin Re-tread Technologies (MRTI) retread plant and a wheel-re� nishing operation in Omaha — ex-tends the Durand, Wis.-based dealership’s reach to 40 commercial sales/service locations and eight retread plants in 10 Midwestern states.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Bauer Built called the acquisition a “perfect

� t” since Allied offers many of the same prod-ucts as Bauer Built — both companies are part of the Michelin Commercial Service Network and operate MRT retread plants — and geo-graphically it both strengthens Bauer Built’s current position and � lls void in existing mar-kets and provides for expansion into new areas.

The Allied Oil tire business, which operates commercial tire centers in Des Moines and Sioux City, Iowa; Wichita, Kan.; Kansas City and Joplin, Mo.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; and Omaha, reported sales of $102.7 million in � scal 2017.

By comparison, Bauer Built’s commer-cial-related sales last year were $185 million.

Bauer Built will be retaining nearly 90 of Allied Tire’s employees and expects to be hir-ing a few more as the merger moves forward. When the companies are merged, Bauer esti-mates it will have a workforce of about 600.

With the divestiture, Allied will revert to its Allied Oil & Supply Inc. name and focus on expansion of its lubricants business and Indus-trial Services division.

Allied Oil has been af� liated with Michelin

T. Duff

J. Duff

SEE COMMERCIAL , PAGE 24


Tire Business Special Feature CommercialTire&RetreadingReport

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Read about it at: www.DoubleCoinTires.com/fuel-e� ciency

To fi nd your local dealer, visit: www.DoubleCoinTires.com

In recent fuel e� ciency tests conducted by a neutral, independent research fi rm, Double Coin went head-to-head against two leading TBR tire brands. We fi nished second. Even though we didn’t fi nish fi rst, our success proves one thing—our tires deliver more value to the customer—and it makes the simple point that the Smart Money is still on Double Coin.

Proven to be a Better Long-Term Value

Rice Tire buys Central TireFREDERICK, Md.

Rice Tire Co. has acquired Cen-tral Tire Co., a 73-year-old commer-cial/retail dealership in Verona, Va., expanding its reach to 11 locations in Maryland, Virginia and Wash-ington, D.C.

Central Tire was founded by the late Guy Westhafer in 1945 and for the past four decades has been run by his sons, Terry and Tommy.

Central Tire consists of a retail store, a commercial store and a re-tread plant that services customers throughout Virginia and into parts

of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Rice Tire said it acquired all busi-ness assets and will employ approx-imately 30 former Central Tire em-ployees. Financial details were not disclosed.

Rice Tire President and CEO Chris Chase said the Westhafers agreed to the sale as they didn’t have a next generation to take over the dealership.

The Verona location is rebranded as Rice Tire.

The acquisition provides Rice Tire

with its 11th location and second re-tread shop. Rice Tire also operates �ve locations in Maryland, four in Virginia and one in Washington, D.C., and a Goodyear retread plant.

Central Tire’s retread plant uses Al-liance Group’s AcuTread mold-cure retreading system, as well as the Good-year system. Mr. Chase said the plant will continue offering both products.

Terry Westhafer is a member of the Tire Industry Hall of Fame, in-ducted in 2008 by the Tire Indus-try Association for his decades of work on behalf of the retreading

industry. He’s a former president of the American Retreaders As-sociation and served on the boards of the International Tire & Rubber Association, Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau and Virginia

Automotive Association.Rice Tire, the 30th largest com-

mercial tire dealership in North America based on sales, was found-ed by Donald B. Rice in Frederick in 1956.

Finalizing the Rice Tire acquisition of Central Tire are, from left, Brian Chase, Rice Tire's strategic account manager; former Central Tire owners Tommy and Terry Westhafer; Rice Tire President and CEO Chris Chase; and Angela Chase, majority owner of Rice Tire.

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TRAC addstire service unit in Ky.PRINCETON, N.J.

Intermodal equipment provider TRAC Intermodal has acquired as-sets relating to the tire services di-vision of Core Fleet Inc., a deal that will allow TRAC to provide tire wholesale, service, parts distribution and retreading to the intermodal and commercial trucking industries.

Princeton-based TRAC is setting up a new subsidiary, TRAC Tire Services L.L.C., to oversee the new business, which will operate out of a 102,000-sq.-ft. facility being set up in Florence, Ky., that will accommodate an expanded production facility, warehouse space and administrative of�ces.

The new facility will enable TRAC Tire to double the retread manufac-turing capacity of the assets being acquired, which had been operating as Retread America since 2008 un-der Core Fleet’s ownership.

That business has provided new tire wholesale and parts distribution, and has been a signi�cant supplier to the tire retread market since its inception, TRAC said. Retread America oper-ated an Oliver Rubber-system retread plant in Florence and carried major tire brands such as Michelin, BFGoodrich, Hankook, WestLake and Iron Man.

TRAC did not say whether it would continue operating under the Oliver system or what brands it intends to carry.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“This acquisition will enable us to provide improved �eet tire solutions to our customers while controlling their quality and cost,” TRAC Intermodal President and CEO Jennifer Polli said.

“The mission of TRAC’s new sub-sidiary is to supply customers with high quality, comprehensive services, includ-ing tire wholesale, parts supply, main-tenance and retreading, to meet their commercial �eets’ needs,” she said.

TRAC Intermodal claims to be North America’s largest provider of intermodal marine equipment and chassis pool manager, with a �eet of about 180,000 marine and specialty chassis available in North America.

TRAC Intermodal began in 1968 as Interpool Ltd., a company that provided dry-freight containers un-der long-term leases to the world’s largest shipping lines.

Dealership expands reach to 11 locations

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Conti continues to expand BestDrive networkFORT MILL, S.C.

Continental Tire the Americas’ BestDrive L.L.C. commercial tire and retread operation opened seven loca-tions across the country in late 2018, expanding the BestDrive network to 31 commercial tire centers across 17 states.

New centers opened in Little Rock, Ark.; Los Angeles; Marietta, Ga.; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Oklahoma City; and Longview and Houston, Texas.

The new locations were all conver-sions of existing facilities. BestDrive did not disclose its investment in the openings nor comment on their staff-ing levels.

BestDrive Managing Director Sonny Simpson said the new locations will en-able BestDrive to “serve our customers more ef�ciently” and help �eets achieve “LODC” (lowest overall driving cost).

BestDrive said it will supply the new locations in Oklahoma City and Longview — which opened for busi-ness within days of each other last November — with retreads produced at its Dallas plant.

The Oklahoma City center, which spans 25,000 square feet, is located west of the city proper at an exit along I-40. The Longview service center is located on South Loop 281 near Texas I-20, providing ready access for local

East Texas �eets, BestDrive said.BestDrive acquired Contractors

Tire Co. Inc. in Marietta to support its Forest Park, Ga., retread plant, and opened a sales of�ce/mobile service site in Idaho Falls to support its re-tread plant in Salt Lake City.

“BestDrive’s continued expansion allows us to better serve our long-haul, regional-haul and on/off-road �eet customers,” Steve Postel, Con-tinental’s director of retail for the Americas region, said.

Earlier in 2018, BestDrive opened two stores in Texas, including the re-tread plant in Grand Prairie, a west-ern Dallas suburb.

“BestDrive is committed to serv-ing �eets across the U.S. with new tires, retreads and tire monitoring technology,” Mr. Simpson said.

“We continue to add locations to support our goal of delivering the ‘Lowest Overall Driving Cost’ to local and national �eet customers.”

BestDrive commercial tire centers offer �eet tire management with Con-tinental, General and AmeriSteel brand products, as well as other supplemental tire brands.

The dealerships equip �eets with new tires and ContiTread retreads as part of the ContiLifeCycle program, the company said.

The BestDrive Redlands, Calif., location is part of the network’s recent ex-pansion.

Yokohama releases ‘Tire Tips’ video series for truckers SANTA ANA, Calif.

Yokohama Tire Corp. has re-leased a “Tire Tips” video series de-signed to help truck drivers identify and prevent tire issues before they become a problem.

“We are always looking for ways to help �eets and drivers in regards to their tires,” Alan Holtschneider, Yo-kohama’s director of marketing, said.

“They already know how import-ant tires are, so we created these informative how-to videos to edu-cate them on various ways to get the most out of them.”

The new series complements a se-ries for consumers that debuted in 2010 and was updated last year with 10 new segments.

The subjects of the commercial truck tire videos are:

• Choosing the right tire;• Improving the life of your tires;• How to properly check tread depth;• Why proper air pressure matters;• Matching tires with axle-load

capacities; and • When is a tire repairable?

Yokohama Tire Corp. has released a tire information video series for truck drivers.

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DELIVERING RELIABLE AND PROFITABLESOLUTIONS FOR ANY FLEETBy Eric Higgs, president, truck, bus and retread tires, U.S. and Canada, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations

Sources: 1Bridgestone R283A™ Ecopia (in steer position), M710™ Ecopia (in drive position), and R197™ Ecopia (in trailer position) in size 295/75R22.5 load range G, compared to the equivalent size and load range of Mi-chelin X-Line Energy Z (in steer position), X-Line Energy D (in drive position), and X-Line Energy T (in trailer position). Rolling resistance and wear results obtained from Bridgestone internal TLCC model which incorporates third party SAE J1269 rolling resistance testing and measures results over the life of the tire. Savings calculated assuming $3.00/gallon fuel cost, 5/32nds pull point, 80,000 lbs. total vehicle weight, for a class 8 tandem drive axle tractor and single trailer combination traveling 120,000 miles/year. Projected wear results based on fi eld test data across multiple users in long haul fl eet application. Actual results will vary depending on several factors such as tire size, operating conditions, maintenance, road conditions, and driving style.

As today’s fl eets work to meet the challenges of on-time deliveries and increasing customer expectations, they can’t afford unexpected downtime.

Today’s fl eets demand more from their business assets, including their tires. They expect and require their tires to go further, last longer and keep their operations running smoothly. By managing a tire throughout its lifecycle – from selection to removal – fl eets can signifi cantly impact their bottom line and make mobility more effi cient.

Bridgestone Ecopia tires: Lower your fuel costs

Bridgestone understands that fl eets need the most reliable tires, designed specifi cally for their business operations, in order to see impactful benefi ts. For example, with high-speed, long-haul operations, fuel-effi cient tires and retreads can have a signifi cant impact on a fl eet’s business. The Bridgestone Ecopia tire line includes features that can deliver improved fuel effi ciency, ultimately creating savings for fl eets to reinvest back into their business. A proprietary fuel-saver sidewall compound and patented NanoPro-Tech polymer technology are specially engineered to limit energy loss for improved rolling resistance.

The Ecopia line utilizes an Intellishape Sidewall design to lower bead fi ller volume, which reduces total tire weight, lowers rolling resistance and generates greater savings.

After selecting a reliable, fuel-effi cient tire like an Ecopia tire, fl eet managers can fi t their trucks with

fuel-effi cient tires at every wheel position to reduce fuel costs. In fact, fl eets have saved up to $1,393 annually in fuel costs by using Bridgestone Ecopia tires at every wheel position.1

Better together: Fuel effi cient tires & retreads

Fleets can further increase their savings by implementing a retreading program, inclusive of fuel-effi cient retread offerings. Bandag, a brand in the Bridgestone family dedicated to the research, development and manufacturing of premium retreads, has created the FuelTech retread line to complement Bridgestone Ecopia tires and drive down fuel costs.

Bridgestone recognizes the advantages of retreads and is promoting the business case

for retreading through the Fleets We Depend On campaign, launched in March 2019. The campaign spotlights the fl eets our communities depend on most – from fi refi ghters to long-haul delivery drivers and fi rst responders – and how Bandag retreads help them get the job done.

Overall, selecting the right tire that not only delivers on performance, but also affects business objectives and is foundational for a fl eet’s tire program. Fleets must be deliberate with their tire maintenance and retread management programs to help achieve business goals and identify opportunities for savings. Through working with a trusted dealer partner to implement this comprehensive approach, fl eets can pave the way for more effi cient mobility.

The Bridgestone Fleets We Depend On campaign spotlights the fl eets our communities depend on most – from fi refi ghters to long-haul delivery drivers and fi rst responders – and how

Bandag retreads help them get the job done.

The new Bridgestone R284 Ecopia tire delivers long wear life and improved rolling resistance.

Bridgestone Ecopia tires are designed to work with Bandag FuelTech retreads to lower the total cost of tire ownership and reduce fuel costs.

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Commercial Company Commercial Retread Rank Sales Owned Employees: Service System<>/ Rank 2019 Company/Headquarters ($ millions) Outlets Services/Sales Trucks No. of plants 2018

1 Southern Tire Mart L.L.C.1

Columbia, Miss. 1,250.0 94 <--1,850 --> 945 • • • • • Dc,To B / 18 1

2 Snider Fleet Solutions Greensboro, N.C.

*500.0 85 600 / 100 450 • • • • • Hk M / 10; O / 1 5

3 Best One Tire & Service L.L.C.2

Indianapolis435.0 149 N.A. 500+ • • • • • • • Da,Dc,

Rm,Sa,ToB / 17 3

4 Pomp’s Tire Service Inc. Green Bay, Wis.

*428.0 94^ N.A. 415 • • • • • • • Da,Dc,Hk,Ks B / 16 4

5 Kal Tire Vernon, British Columbia

405.0# 133^ N.A. 7,000 • • • • Sa,Su B / 10m.c. / 2

2

6 McCarthy Tire Service Co. Inc. Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

345.9 47^ N.A. 310 • • • • • • • Da B / 7 7

7 Les Schwab Tire Centers3

Bend, Ore. 338.1 429 N.A. 1,500 • • • • Dc,Fk,To Mg,O / 3 6

8 Service Tire Truck Centers Inc. Bethlehem, Pa.

*247.5 45^ 336 / 85 247 • • • • Rm M / 3, O / 1 8

9 Fountain Tire Ltd.4

Edmonton, Alberta238.9# 109^ 489 / 225 387 • • Ae,Du,Ju,Ks G / 6 24

10 Purcell Tire & Rubber Co. Potosi, Mo.

195.5 69^ 165 / 125 150 • • • Du,Hk,Ks,Rm G / 4 10

11 Bauer Built Inc.5

Durand, Wis. 184.6 34^ 150 / 115 100 • • • • Am,Cn,He,

Ku,UnM / 7 9

12 Boulevard Tire Center Deland, Fla.

178.6 22^ 311 / 34 187 • • • • • • • Da,Hk,Rm B / 4 11

13 T&W Tire Inc. Oklahoma City

177.6 30^ <---525---> 125 • • • • Ae,Hk,Sa,Su M / 4 14

14 Parkhouse Tire Inc.6

Bell Gardens, Calif.170.0 12 <---400---> 160 • • • • • • Da,Dc,Rm,Tr B / 4 13

15 Tredroc Tire Services Antioch, Ill.

150.0 19 252 / 45 300 • • • • • • Da,Fk,Hk,Rm B / 6 12

16 Redburn Tire Co. Phoenix

123.0 13 <--- 290 ---> 125 • • • • • • • Da,Dc,Rm,Tr B / 5 15

17 Bob Sumerel Tire Co. Erlanger, Ky.

115.0 18^ 90 / 50 70 • • • • • • Da,Rm B / 7 17

18 Allied Oil & Tire Co.7

Omaha, Neb. *112.0 7^ 33 /37 31 • • Au,Hk,To,Un M / 1 18

19 Atlanta Commercial Tire Forest Park, Ga.

105.0 15^ 120 / 85 55 • • • • • • • Am,Da,Hk,Un B / 3 16

20 Ziegler Tire & Supply Co. Massillon, Ohio

91.0 19^ 80 / 35 80 • • • • • • • Da,Sa,Su,Un M / 2 19

21 Sullivan Tire Co. Inc. Norwell, Mass.

90.0 15^ N.A. 79 • • • • Da,Du,Gl,Ks B / 3 21

22 Raben Tire Co. Inc. Evansville, Ind.

*87.5 23^ N.A. 99 • • • • • • Du,Gt,Hk, Ks,Sa,Un

G / 2, O / 1 20

23 Cross Dillon Tire Lincoln, Neb.

*81.0 7^ N.A. N.A. • • • • • Rm B / 2 22

24 Pete’s Tire Barn Inc. Orange, Mass.

70.5 18^ 167 / 30 118 • • • • • • Da,Dc,Dt B / 2 23

25 Jack’s Tire & Oil Inc. Logan, Utah

67.0 12^ 103 / 28 57 • • • • • • Hk,Sa,Su M / 5 25

26T Custom Bandag Inc. Linden, N.J.

65.0 15^ N.A. 100 • • • • • • • • Da,Dc,Du,Gl,Hk,Ks,Rm

B / 3 31

26T Monro Inc.8

Hickory, N.C. *65.0 9^ N.A. N.A. • • • Du,Ks,Un G + Acu / 2 45

28 Eastern Iowa Tire Inc. Davenport, Iowa

63.7 17 80 / 34 54

• • • • • Da,Dc,Fk B / 5 26

29 McGriff Tire Co./McGriff Treading Co. Inc. Cullman, Ala.

*61.0 12^ N.A. N.A. • • • • • • • Da,Gt B /3 27

30 Rice Tire Co.9

Frederick, Md.60.0 10^ 120 / 50 50 • • • • • Ae,Du,Fk,Ks G / 1 39

31 Valley Tire Co. Inc. Charleroi, Pa.

59.4 17^ 57 / 18 75 • • • • • Fk,Gl,Rm M / 1 28

32 Quality Tire Co.10

Salt Lake City 58.0 8^ <--186--> 35 • • • • Am,Hk,Su,Tr M - 1 / O - 2 40

33 Beasley Tire Service Inc. Houston

56.8 9^ 70 / 23 57 • • • Du,Fk,Ks,Rm M / 1 36

34 Callaghan Tire Co. Bradenton, Fla.

55.0 10 <-- 180 --> 60 • • • • • • • Fk B / 2 35

35 Good Tire Service Inc. Kittanning, Pa.

54.6 8^ <-- 130 ---> 40+ • • • • • Da,Hk B / 1 29

36 Royal Tire Inc. St. Cloud, Minn.

*54.5 15^ 50 / 25 65 • • • Da,Fk,To B / 3 32

North America’s largest commercial dealerships The 50 largest independents in the U.S. and Canada, based on 2018 sales

WE’RE HERE TO HELP TAKE YOUR FLEET FURTHERGet started at Commercial.Bridgestone.com

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37 Graham Tire Sioux Falls, S.D./Spencer, Iowa

*53.0 21^ 33 /22 30 • Ae,Du,Hk, Ks,On

G / 2 30

38 Pete’s Road Service Fullerton, Calif.

*52.0 10 60 / 21 60 • • Ar,Bl,Hk, To,Un

O / 1 34

39 Commercial Tire Inc. Meridian, Idaho

*50.0 37^ 82 / 42 181 • • • • • • Al,Da,Gx, Rm,Tr

B / 3 33

40 Gem City Tire Dayton, Ohio

*42.5 8 <--- 100 ---> 50 • Du,Ks G / 1 37

41 Piedmont Truck Tires Inc. Greensboro, N.C.

41.4 10^ 142 / 23 50 • • Sa,Sm,Su, Happy Roads

C-LC / 1 38

42 Bergey’s Tire Franconia, Pa.

*34.5 6^ N.A. 48 • • • • • To, Un C-LC, MG / 2 Prima m/c

41

43 Pneus Belisle Inc. Boucherville, Quebec

*33.0 10^ N.A. N.A. • • • Ae,Gx,Mm,Px M / 2 42

44 Action Tire Co. Forest Park, Ga.

31.6 11 70 / 13 63 • • • • Dc,Rm,To O / 1 43

45 BR Retreading Inc. New Glasgow, Ky.

*30.0 2 15 / 05 6 • • • • • Du,Ks 44

46 New Pride Corp.11

Oakland, Calif. 24.0 4 12 / 4 N.A. O / 2 46

47 Tiremaster Ltd Brampton, Ontario

27.0# 4 <--- 137 ---> 30 • • • Dc,Dr,Hk,Un M / 2 47

48 Border Recapping L.L.C.12

Las Cruces, N.M. 21.6 10 49 / 26 45 • • Hk,Su M - 1 / O - 1 N.R.

49 Roberts Tire Sales Inc. Mesa, Ariz.

18.6 3 25 / 05 15 • • • • He,Hk,Sa, Su,To

PQ / 1 N.R.

50 New England Truck Tire Centers Inc. Sanford, Maine

17.7 9^ 26 / 9 20 • • • • M / 1 50

Commercial Company Commercial Retread Rank Sales Owned Employees: Service System<>/ Rank 2019 Company/Headquarters ($ millions) Outlets Services/Sales Trucks No. of plants 2018

North America’s largest commercial dealerships The 50 largest independents in the U.S. and Canada, based on 2018 sales

Tire Brands -- Ae=Aeolus; Al=Alliance; Am=AmeriSteel; Bl=Black Lion; Cn-Constellation; Da=Dayton; Dc=Double Coin; Ds=Doublestar; Dt=Duraturn; Du=Dunlop; Gl=Gladiator; Gt=GT Tire; Gx=Galaxy; He=Hercules; Hk=Hankook; Ll=Linglong; Ks=Kelly-Springfield; Ku=Kumho; Mc=Mastercraft; Og=O’Green; Oh=Ohtsu; On=Onyx; Rm=Roadmaster (Cooper); Sa=Sailun; Sm=Supermax; Su=Sumitomo, Ti=Titan; To=Toyo; Tr=Triangle* = estimated: N.A. = not available; ^ = includes combination retail/commercial outlets # = converted from Canadian $ at 1.33 per U.S. $<> = Retread system IDs: Acu = AcuTread; B=Bandag; C-LC=ContiLifeCycle; G=Goodyear; Hw=Hawkinson; L=Long Mile; MG=Marangoni RTS; M=Michelin; O=Oliver; PQ = Pre-Q; PC=precure; MC=mold cure 1 — Southern Tire Mart is buying 46 GCR sales/service locations and 6 retread plants, Q2 2019, from Bridgestone Americas. 2 — d.b.a.-- Best One Tire & Service; includes sales of S&S Tire, Southern Indiana Tire, Tommy House Tire, Huber Tire, Zurcher Tire, Southern Illinois Tire, etc. 3 — also has 57 ‘member dealers.’

4 — minority owned by Goodyear Canada; 54 Fountain stores are corporate partnerships, 12 are associate dealers. 5 — acquired the tire business — 7 sales/service outlets, 1 MRT plant, 1 wheel refinishing plant — of Allied Oil & Tire (No. 18 on this year’s list), Q2 2019. 6 — acquired four GCR sales/service outlets and 2 Bandag plants, Q1 2019, from Bridgestone Americas. 7 — sold its tire business — 7 sales/service outlets, 1 MRT plant, 1 wheel refinishing plant — to Bauer Built Inc. (No. 11 on this year’s list), Q2 2019. 8 — Monro’s commercial business comprises assets from the former McGee Commercial Tire and Clark Tire acquisitions. 9 — acquired Central Tire Corp. of Verona, Va., Q1 2019.10 — acquired 3 TCi sales/service outlets and 1 MRT plant in Colorado, Q2 2018. 11 — acquired mid-2018 by FlexiVan Leasing Inc. 12 — acquired 5 TCi sales/service centers and 1 MRT plant in California, Q4 2018.

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Steel wheel makers, importers debate market conditionsWASHINGTON

U.S. manufacturers of steel wheels for commercial vehicles and rep-resentatives of Chinese producers hold vastly different views as to why the domestic wheel industry appears to be struggling �nancially.

Testifying before an International Trade Commission (ITC) materi-al injury hearing in Washington in mid-March, U.S. producers claimed they are suffering “severe material injury” because of rising Chinese imports that are sold below mar-ket rates, while supporters of the Chinese steel wheel industry said the business practices of Accuride Corp. and Maxion Wheels Akron L.L.C. were to blame for any sales losses or �nancial dif�culties they might be suffering.

A previous investigation against Chinese steel wheels in 2012 re-sulted in a negative determination, and little has changed in the market since then, they said.

At issue are Chinese-sourced steel wheels, rims and discs with 22.5- to 24.5-inch rim diameters, commonly used on commercial trucks, trailers and buses. Accuride and Maxion petitioned the ITC last year for an-tidumping and countervailing duties against Chinese importers.

In August 2018, the Commerce Department levied preliminary anti-dumping duties against the Chinese importers of up to 231.7 percent and countervailing duties of 48.75 to 172.51 percent.

At the hearing, Accuride and Maxion said Chinese steel wheel imports increased 14.64 percent from 2015 to 2017, the period of the ITC investigation.

From January-May 2018, imports rose 26.6 percent over the same pe-riod in 2017, according to the do-mestic companies. But in May-Sep-tember 2018, after Commerce levied the preliminary duties, imports fell 47.1 percent, they said.

Accuride Wheels North Ameri-ca President Gregory Risch said at the hearing that Accuride had been forced to reduce capital expendi-tures by roughly half of what they normally would be and research and development spending by about two-thirds, because of unfair Chi-nese competition.

“Our Henderson (Ky.) facility is extraordinarily ef�cient and was recognized as a leading manufactur-ing facility in 2014 by the Associa-tion for Manufacturing Excellence,” Mr. Risch said.

“Unfortunately, many projects at the plant that have been proposed have been rejected because of market conditions,” he said. “Without relief, there is little doubt that the next move by Accuride would be to close Hen-derson and relocate to China.”

Steel prices have increased sig-

ni�cantly in 2018 because of the new tariffs against imported steel, according to Don Polk, president, the Americas for Maxion.

“As our �nancial information makes clear, Maxion’s Akron fa-cility has been unable to pass on the large increase in raw-material costs,” Mr. Polk said. “This inabil-ity is due in signi�cant part to the depressed prices of Chinese product in the market.”

Opponents of duties, however, said the steel wheel market is just as segmented in 2019 as it was in 2012, when steel wheels of 18.5 to 24.5 inches in rim diameter were inves-tigated.

Domestic wheel manufacturers dominate the original equipment market, whereas China sells main-ly into the replacement market, ac-cording to Amanda Walker, chief operations of�cer for Trans Texas Tire (TTT).

“We have always wanted to sup-port American industry,” Ms. Walk-er said, adding that since 1999 do-mestic steel wheel producers have refused to sell wheels to TTT.

Accuride offered to sell wheels to TTT just before the 2012 ITC hearing, according to Ms. Walker, “but those terms of sale were not suitable to us, and we declined the offer. They didn’t want to sell us lightweight wheels, only the heavier ones.”

U.S. wheel producers also are unwilling to provide smaller lots of specialized wheels, such as wheels in special colors, Ms. Walker said.

“My experience is that Chinese suppliers will add value for our cus-tomers,” she said.

“To be sure, both Accuride and Maxion are both present in the after-market, and make sales to aftermar-ket customers,” Ms. Walker said. “But in our view, their own business practices and commercial strategy has almost certainly prevented them from making even greater inroads into this market segment.”

Post hearing briefs in the investi-gation were due March 26 and �nal comments April 19.

By Miles [email protected]

Saluting a military vetLOUISVILLE, Ky.

U.S. military veteran Paul Mathi-as was selected as this year’s recipi-ent of the Goodyear Highway Hero Award, which honors truck drivers who risk injury to help others.

Mr. Mathias, a driver for Sys-tem Transport of Cheney, Wash., stepped in when he witnessed an accident in late 2017 at an inter-section in Phoenix, where a vehi-cle running a red light slammed into an SUV containing a mother and her two children.

Mr. Mathias helped the mother perform CPR on her son and com-forted her daughter, who died on the scene from her injuries. Mr. Mathias administered CPR on the boy until emergency crews ar-rived. The boy survived.

The award, which included a commemorative Goodyear High-way Hero ring and cash prize, was presented March 28 during a cer-emony at the Crowne Plaza Lou-isville Airport Hotel in Louisville during the 2019 Mid-American Trucking Show.

“We are proud to add Paul Mathi-as to our list of Goodyear Highway Heroes,” Goodyear Marketing Di-rector Gary Medalis said.

“His leadership, courage and willingness to help a family in crisis exemplify the spirit of this award.”

The winner of the Goodyear Highway Hero Award, established in 1983, was selected by an inde-pendent panel consisting of truck-ing industry journalists.

Finalists for the award were Darrell Atkins, a driver from Al-varedo, Texas, and Don Frederick, a driver from Kimbolton, Ohio.

Mr. Atkins was driving on an Arizona interstate when he wit-nessed a vehicle containing an elderly couple get struck from be-hind, �ip over and come to a stop on a grassy median.

Mr. Atkins worked with a by-stander to extract the driver, who was hanging upside down by her seatbelt.

Even as gasoline began to leak, Mr. Atkins continued to remove the husband and the couple’s three dogs from the car and remained with them until emergency crews arrived.

The other �nalist, Mr. Freder-ick, was driving on a state high-

way in Ohio when he witnessed a coal truck �ip onto its side while making a turn.

Mr. Frederick removed the damaged truck’s back window, reached into the vehicle and ap-plied direct pressure to the wound-ed driver, who was bleeding heav-ily and trapped by the truck’s steering wheel.

As the truck began to emit smoke, Mr. Frederick freed the driver’s legs and worked with a bystander to help the driver exit the truck.

Mr. Frederick continued to ren-der �rst aid until emergency crews arrived.

Goodyear Marketing Director Gary Medalis (left) presents Paul Mathias with the 2019 Highway Hero Award.

Wash. truck driver receives Goodyear Highway Hero Award

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Bandag displayed its retreaded tires at the Technology & Maintenance Council’s annual con-vention and trade show in Atlanta.

Bandag has launched an industrywide retreading education campaign called 'Fleets We Depend On.'

ATLANTARecognizing that small- to medi-

um-sized �eets traditionally aren’t big users of retreads, Bridgestone Ameri-cas Inc. and its Bandag business unit are launching an industrywide re-treading education campaign called “Fleets We Depend On.”

“Bridgestone is committed to mak-ing mobility more ef�cient,” Eric Higgs, president, truck, bus and re-tread tires, U.S. and Canada, said at the campaign’s launch at the Technol-ogy & Maintenance Council’s annual convention and trade show, which was held in early March in Atlanta.

“While most large �eets already use retreads, we recognized a real opportunity to better inform small- and mid-sized �eets on the bene�ts that choosing Bandag can bring to their businesses. We are on a mission to showcase how retreads add value to a comprehensive tire management program.”

The Fleets We Depend On cam-paign spotlights �eets that serve the public — from �re departments to �rst responders to school districts — and their daily reliance on retreads to get the job done, Bridgestone said.

The campaign stresses that retreads are a reliable solution for everyday he-roes and �eets in any �eld, Bridgestone said, noting that Bandag recognizes that retreads play a critical role in ev-eryday operations of these �eets and is dedicated to engineering a product that delivers safe and reliable performance to keep communities moving.

Bridgestone will take the campaign on the road, presenting the cam-paign’s message at 27 industry, dealer and Bridgestone location stops across North America running through July. The campaign roadshow will provide an inside look at the retreading pro-cess and allow participants to hear from experts on optimal Bridgestone tire casing and Bandag retread com-binations that are designed to work together to maximize performance.

Cities on the tour include Akron; At-lanta; Elizabeth, N.J.; Nashville; Orlan-do, Fla.; and Phoenix, among others.

In addition, the campaign will award one deserving �eet $5,000 in Septem-ber as part of the “Fleets We Depend On Award.” Presented by Bandag, the contest will spotlight the reliable indi-viduals and �eets that keep the country moving and make an impact in their local communities.

Fleets and individuals can be nom-inated through the Bandag website or at the roadshow stops, according to Bridgestone.

Bandag courts smaller �eets with retread campaign


http://www.ta-petro.com


1 Goodyear Commercial Tire Systems L.L.C.1

Fort Smith, Ark.*30.00 14.0% *5,000 29 N.A. 0p4 GY p.c. & m.c.

GY Unicircle (25 plants)1T

2 Southern Tire Mart L.L.C. Columbia, Miss.

28.50 1.8% 5,051 18 5 1 to 2 Bandag 1T

3 Snider Fleet Solutions 2 Greensboro, N.C.

*26.00 N.C. 3,500 11 5 to 6 2 to 3 MRT (10), Oliver (1) 3

4 GCR Tires & Service3

Nashville, Tenn. *18.00 -10.0% *2,750 26 N.A. N.A. Bandag 4

5 Pomp’s Tire & Auto Service Inc. Green Bay, Wis.

*17.25 4.5% *2,850 16 5 1 to 2 Bandag 5

6 Best One Tire & Service4

Indianapolis 16.50 5.7% 2,225 17 5 1 to 2 Bandag 6

7 McCarthy Tire Service Co. Inc. Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

12.00 N.C. 1,675 7 5 1 1/2 Bandag 7

8 Les Schwab Tire Centers Bend, Ore.

*11.10 N.A. *1,550 3 N.A. N.A. Oliver; M-RTS; Galgo 8

9 T&W Tire Oklahoma City

10.00 N.A. 900 4 5 2 MRT 10

10 Kal Tire5

Vernon, British Columbia 9.78 N.A. N.A. 10 N.A. N.A. Bandag 9

11 Service Tire Truck Centers Inc. Bethlehem, Pa.

8.00 3.9% 1,150 4 5 2 1/2 MRT (3) / Oliver (1) 11

12 Bauer Built Inc.6

Durand, Wis. 7.50 7.1% 1,052 7# 5 1/2 1 to 2 MRT 12

13 Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores Inc.7

Oklahoma City *7.00 N.A. *1,000 4 N.A. N.A. Oliver 13


6.40 N.C. 890 4 6 2 GY m.c. & p.c. 14

15T Bob Sumerel Tire Co. Inc.8

Erlanger, Ky. 6.30 23.5% 992 7 5 1 1/2 Bandag 15T

15T Boulevard Tire Center Deland, Fla.

6.30 N.C. 1,031 5 5 1 Bandag 15T

17 Parkhouse Tire Inc.9

Bell Gardens, Calif. 5.50 -8.3% 850 4 5 1 1/2 Bandag 17

18 Tredroc Tire Services Antioch, Ill.

5.00 -10.0% 685 5 5 1 Bandag 19

19 Jack’s Tire & Oil Inc. Logan, Utah

4.80 -2.0% 660 5 5 1 MRT 20

20 Atlanta Commercial Tire Forest Park, Ga.

4.50 -2.2% 850 3 5 1 Bandag 21

21 BestDrive L.L.C.10

Fort Mill, S.C. 4.35 24.1% 600 7 5 1 C-LC 24

22 Ziegler Tire & Supply Co. Massillon, Ohio

3.95 -1.3% 420 2 5 1 1/2 MRT 22

23 Custom Bandag Inc. Linden, N.J.

*3.80 N.A. *600 3 5 1 Bandag 23

24T Rechapage Belisle Inc. St. Jerome, Quebec

*3.50 N.A. *600 2 5 1 MRT 25T

24T Sullivan Tire Co. Norwell, Mass.

*3.50 N.A. 475 3 5 1 Bandag 25T

26 Redburn Tire Co. Phoenix, Ariz.

3.20 N.C. 370 5 5 1 Bandag 27

27 Fountain Tire Ltd. Edmonton, Alberta

3.02 33.0% 600 6 5 1 to 2 GY 38


*3.00 N.A. 450 3 5 1 1/2 Bandag 28T

29T Valley Tire Co. Inc. Belle Vernon, Pa.

3.00 N.C. 440 1 4 2 MRT 28T

29T McGriff Treading Co. Inc. Cullman, Ala.

*3.00 N.A. *575 2 5 1 to 2 Bandag 28T

31 Treads West Inc. Edmonton, Alberta

2.70 N.C. 330 2 5 2 MRT, Oliver 31

32T Border Recapping L.L.C.11

Las Cruces, N.M. 2.50 N.A. 360 2 5 2 MRT, Oliver N.R.

32T New Holland Tire Inc. Terre Hill, Pa.

*2.50 N.A. 350 2 5 2 Bandamatic 32T

32T Graham Tire Co. Spencer, Iowa/Sioux Falls, S.D.

*2.50 N.A. 400 2 5 1 GY (p.c. & m.c.) 32T

35T Bergey’s Tire & Auto Centers Franconia, Pa.

*2.40 N.A. *355 2# 5 1 1/2 C-LC; M-RTS 34T

35T Cross-Dillon Tire Co. Lincoln, Neb.

*2.40 N.A. *360 2 N.A. N.A. Bandag 34T

Rank pounds/year % change 20182019 Company/ headquarters (in millions) vs. ’17 units/days/ Plants# Days/week Shifts Curing Process(es)# Rank

Medium & Heavy Truck Tires

*30.00

28.50

*26.00

*18.00

*17.25

16.50

12.00

*11.10

10.00

9.78

8.00

7.50

*7.00

6.40

6.30

6.30

5.50

5.00

4.80

4.50

4.35

3.95

*3.80

*3.50

*3.50

3.20

3.02

*3.00

3.00

*3.00

2.70

2.50

*2.50

*2.50

*2.40

*2.40

*5,000

5,051

3,500

*2,750

*2,850

2,225

1,675

*1,550

900

N.A.

1,150

1,052

*1,000

890

992

1,031

850

685

660

850

600

420

*600

*600

475

370

600

450

440

*575

330

360

350

400

*355

*360

N.A.

5

5 to 6

N.A.

5

5

5

N.A.

5

N.A.

5

5 1/2

N.A.

6

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

4

5

5

5

5

5

5

N.A.

GY p.c. & m.c.GY Unicircle (25 plants)Bandag

MRT (10), Oliver (1)

Bandag

Bandag

Bandag

Bandag

Oliver; M-RTS; Galgo

MRT

Bandag

MRT (3) / Oliver (1)

MRT

Oliver

GY m.c. & p.c.

Bandag

Bandag

Bandag

Bandag

MRT

Bandag

C-LC

MRT

Bandag

MRT

Bandag

Bandag

GY

Bandag

MRT

Bandag

MRT, Oliver

MRT, Oliver

Bandamatic

GY (p.c. & m.c.)

C-LC; M-RTS

Bandag

North America’s largest retreaders(Based on tread rubber used during last full year — 2018)


37T Eastern Iowa Tire Inc. Davenport, Iowa

2.30 N.C. 320 5 5 1 Bandag 37

37T Pete’s Tire Barns Inc. Orange, Mass.

2.30 15.0% 350 2 5 1 Bandag 42T

37T Sumerel Tire Service Inc.12

Newport, Ky. 2.30 4.5% 255 3 5 1 1/2 A-T (1), PQ (1), M-RTS (1) 39T

40T Gem City Tire Dayton, Ohio

*2.20 N.A. 325 1 5 1 GY (p.c. & m.c.) 39T

40T Tiremaster Ltd. Brampton, Ontario

*2.20 N.A. 350 2 5 1 MRT 39T

42 Callaghan Tire Bradenton, Fla.

*2.05 4.5% 300 2 5 1 Bandag 45

43T TRAC Tire Services Inc.13

Florence, Ky. *2.00 N.A. 300 1 5 1 GY; Oliver N.R.

43T Commercial Tire Inc. Meridien, Idaho

*2.00 N.A. 285 3 5 1 Bandag 42T

45T Quality Tire Co.14

Salt Lake City 1.90 N.A. 275 2 5 1 MRT (1), Oliver (2) 49

45T Raben Tire Co. Inc. Evansville, Ind.

*1.90 N.A. 380 3 5 1 GY (2), Oliver (1) 46

47 White’s Tire Service of Wilson Inc. Wilson, N.C.

1.80 N.A. 190 1# 5 1 1/2 M-RTS; C-LC; Vp 42T

48 New Pride Corp.Rancho Dominguez, Calif.

1.60 -33.3% 300 2 5 2 Oliver 34T

49 J.A.R. Rubber / Ranger Tires Bay Shore, N.Y.

*1.50 N.A. 180 2 5 1/2 1 1/2 M-RTS 50

50 Beasley Tire Service Houston

1.39 N.C. 200 1 5 1 MRT N.R. * = estimated; N.A. = not available; N.R. = Not Ranked in 2018 # = Some plants may produce other types of retreads # — A-T=Acutread; C-LC = ContiLifeCycle; Ga=Galgo; GY=Goodyear; MRT=Michelin Retread Technologies; M-RTS=Marangoni RingTread System; PQ=Pre-Q 1 — Goodyear subsidiary; Goodyear Canada also operates one OTR retread plant in North Bay, Ontario. 2 — Southern Tire Mart acquiring 6 plants from Bridgestone Americas/GCR Tires, Q2 2019. 3 — Data cover GCR Truck Tire Centers in the U.S. and Canada; company selling 6 plants to Southern, Tire Mart, Q2 2019; sold 2 plants to Parkhouse Tire, Q2; closed or sold 3 plants in Quebec, Q1 2018. 4 — Includes sales/production of Southern Indiana Tire, Tommy House Tire, Huber Tire, Zurcher Tire, Southern Illinois Tire, etc.; 5 — Also operates OTR retread plants in Kamloops, British Columbia, and Oshawa, Ontario (Polar Rubber Products).

6 — Bauer Built acquired 1 MRT plant from Allied Oil & Tire, Q2 2019. 7 — Estimated production. Love’s opened its first retread plant in mid-2016 and three others later. Estimate based on rated plant capacities at a reduced rate of production. 8 — Separate company from Bob Sumerel Tire & Auto Service; not affiliated with Sumerel Tire Service Inc. of Newport, Ky. (No. 39 on this year’s list). 9 — Parkhouse Tire acquired 2 Bandag plants from Bridgestone Americas/GCR Tires, Q1 2019.10 — Continental Tire the Americas subsidiary.11 — Border Recapping acquired 1 MRT plant in California, Q4 2018, from Michelin/TCi.12 — Sumerel Tire separate from and not affiliated with Bob Sumerel Tire (No. 14 on this year’s list).13 — Formerly Retread America, the retread operations of Core Fleet Inc.; acquired Q3 2018 by TRAC Intermodal. 14 — Quality Tire acquired 1 MRT plant in Colorado, Q2 2018, from Michelin/TCi.

North America’s largest retreaders (Based on tread rubber used during last full year — 2018)

Off-the-road tires

Passenger & light truck tires


Medium & Heavy Truck Tires

1 Purcell Tire & Rubber Co.1

Potosi, Mo. 7.40 5.7% 125 1# 6 2 m.c., flexcure, & sculpture 2

2 RDH Tire Co. Cleveland, N.C.

5.00 N.C. 50 1 5 3 Marangoni m.c.cut tread

3

3 H&H Industries Inc. Oak Hill, Ohio

4.70 -4.1% 48 1 5 1/2 3 m.c., p.c., & cut-tread 5

4 B.R. Retreading Inc. Glasgow, Ky.

*4.00 N.A. 55 1 5 2 Marangoni, m.c., cut tread 4

5 Kal Tire2,3

Vernon, British Columbia2.92 8.1% N.A. 2 5 1 1/2 Marangoni m.c., Bandag 6

6 Goodyear Canada Inc. Toronto, Ontario

*2.50 N.A. *45 1 N.A. N.A. GY m.c. 7

7 Community Tire Co. Inc. St. Louis, Mo.

*2.00 N.A. 35 1 5 3 m.c., bead-bead, & full-circle

8

8 Craft Tire Inc. Uniontown, Pa.

*1.70 N.A. 24 2 6 3 Marangoni, computer tread 9

9 Lan OTR Inc. Lanoraie, Quebec

1.00 N.A. 15 1 5 -- Precure N.R.

10 Les Schwab Tire Centers Inc. Prineville, Ore.

*0.60 N.A. *10 1# 5 3 m.c., sculpture 11


*0.50 N.A. 3 1 5 1 1/2 Bandag 12

12 White’s Tire Service of Wilson Wilson, N.C.

0.10 N.A. 4 1 5 1/2 1 1/2 Marangoni m.c. N.R.

* = estimated N.A. = not available; N.C. = no change; N.R. = not ranked in 2018 1 — Purcell acquired retread assets of Northwest Retreaders Inc., Q2 2018.

2 — Combined data for Kal Tire and Polar Rubber Products; Kal acquired full ownership of Ontario-based Polar Rubber in 2011. 3 — Canadian production only; Kal Tire also retreads in plants in Australia, South America.


Rank pounds/year % change units/days/ 20182019 Company/ headquarters (in millions) vs. ’17 Passenger/Light Truck Plants# Days/week Shifts Curing Process(es)# Rank

1 Tread Wright Inc. Houston

*1.75 N.A. 000 / 500 1 5 N.A. m.c.(CIMA) 3

2 Eastern Tire Service Ltd. New Glasgow, Nova Scotia

*1.50 N.C. 600 / 100 1 5 2 Italmatic B to B 1T

2 Techno Pneu Inc./Moldex Rimouski, Quebec

*1.50 N.C. 225 / 225 1 5 3 CIMA m.c. 1T


0.50 N.C. 000 / 125 5# 6 2 p.c. + m.c. N.A.

5 Tire Recappers of Nashville Nashville, Tenn.

*0.40 N.A. 140 / 000 1 N.A. N.A. m.c. N.A.

2.30

2.30

2.30

*2.20

*2.20

*2.05

*2.00

*2.00

1.90

*1.90

1.80

1.60

*1.50

1.39

320

350

255

325

350

300

300

285

275

380

190

300

180

200

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5 1/2

5

Bandag

Bandag

A-T (1), PQ (1), M-RTS (1)

GY (p.c. & m.c.)

MRT

Bandag

GY; Oliver

Bandag

MRT (1), Oliver (2)

GY (2), Oliver (1)

M-RTS; C-LC; Vp

Oliver

M-RTS

MRT

7.40

5.00

4.70

*4.00

2.92

*2.50

*2.00

*1.70

1.00

*0.60

*0.50

0.10

125

50

48

55

N.A.

*45

35

24

15

*10

3

4

6

5

5 1/2

5

5

N.A.

5

6

5

5

5

5 1/2

m.c., flexcure, & sculpture

Marangoni m.c.cut tread m.c., p.c., & cut-tread

Marangoni, m.c., cut tread

Marangoni m.c., Bandag

GY m.c.

m.c., bead-bead, & full-circle Marangoni, computer tread

Precure

m.c., sculpture

Bandag

Marangoni m.c.

*1.75

*1.50

*1.50

0.50

*0.40

000 / 500

600 / 100

225 / 225

000 / 125

140 / 000

5

5

5

6

N.A.

m.c.(CIMA)

Italmatic B to B

CIMA m.c.

p.c. + m.c.

m.c.

Passenger & light truck tires



Improved rolling resistanceHANOVER, Germany

Rubber reinforcements producer Evonik Industries A.G. has developed a silica/silane technology for use in natural rubber compounds it claims could help reduce rolling resistance in medium truck and bus tires.

Evonik claims testing shows using its silica/silane technology could yield fuel savings of as much as 8 percent versus traditional car-bon-black reinforced NR compounds while also reducing braking distances, lead-ing to greater driving safety on wet or snow-covered roads.

Silica’s effect on rolling resistance in passenger tires is well documented, Evonik noted, when used in compound-ing with synthetic rubber. It’s claiming the use of its Ultrasil 91000 GR precipitated silica reinforcing �ller is “particularly suitable” for use in truck and bus tires.

“So silica/silane technology, especially when used in green tires for buses and trucks with high fuel con-sumption levels, is making an important contribution to climate protection,” Jens Kiesewetter, Evonik’s head of technical service for rubber silica, said, “and that in anticipation of the recently concluded EU agreement on targets for CO2 reduction for trucks.”

Evonik noted that despite its high speci�c-surface area, Ultrasil 9100 GR is incorporated into and dis-persed in the natural rubber compound relatively easily. The resulting compound offers improved abrasion resis-tance, which in turn yields better mileage performance.

This is particularly critical, Evonik said, because of the long distances truck/bus tires cover and the variations in infrastructure they encounter, which subject these tires to particularly heavy loads. Silica-reinforced compounds also improve driving safety through shorter braking distances,

even on wet road surfaces, Evonik stated. “Feedback from the market tells us that demand for

green tires continues to be very high, thanks to their ad-vantages,” Bernhard Schäfer, head of rubber silica, said.

“Their use in buses and trucks particularly is still quite new and is attracting great interest.”

In addition, Evonik noted it is “fully on track” to expand tire silica capacity at a plant in Adapazari, Turkey, including adding capacity for the Ultrasil 9100 GR precipitated silica reinforcing �ller and

Ultrasil 5000 GR, for optimizing wet and winter properties of tires.

Launched in response to “growing de-mand for innovative silica,” the expansion project will primarily serve customers in southeastern Europe and the Middle East.

Designed to increase capacity by 40,000 metric tons per year, the project is expected to be completed in late 2019.

European Rubber JournalPOTSDAM, Germany

Researchers from the Fraunhofer In-stitutes for Applied Polymer Research in Germany have developed a polyiso-prene synthetic rubber they claim can exceed the treadwear performance of natural rubber in truck tires.

The discovery, dubbed “BISY-KA” achieves 30- to 50-percent less abrasion than natural rubber, Fraun-hofer Institutes said, making it ideal for use in truck tire treads, for which SR up to now has been unsuitable.

“The treads of (truck) tires are manufactured primarily from natu-ral rubber ... and to date has demon-strated the best abrasion characteris-tics,” the research institute said.

However, the need to �nd alter-

native rubber sources has been in-creasing as the supply security of NR is doubtful, due to fungi that have decimated the Brazilian rubber industry and could, at some point, appear in Southeast Asia, where the vast majority of the world’s NR is cultivated.

Researchers at Fraunhofer Insti-tutes began development of BISY-KA — named for the German ab-breviation for biometric synthetic rubber — a few years ago by study-ing dandelion rubber,

“Like the rubber from rubber trees, 95 percent of dandelion rubber consists of polyisoprene,” the insti-tute said. Because dandelions gener-ate a yield in three months compared with seven years for Hevea trees, it

was ideal for research, it said.“After they had identi�ed the

organic components that were im-portant to abrasion behavior, the

researchers at Fraunhofer IAP syn-thesized the BISYKA rubber out of functionalized polyisoprene with high microstructural purity and the respective biomolecules,” Fraun-hofer said.

Fraunhofer scientists investigated the characteristics of BISYKA and used new kinds of silica to optimize performance, the institute said.

In those tests, tires with BISKYA treads were compared with tires with conventional natural rubber treads. Whereas the NR tires at the end of testing had lost 850 grams of weight and 0.94 millimeters of tread, the BISYKA tires lost only 600 grams of weight and 0.47 mil-limeters of tread, it said.

As the next step, Fraunhofer plans

to optimize the BISYKA rubber further, concentrating on the com-position and proportion of the or-ganic components, according to Ul-rich Wendler, leader of the project at the Fraunhofer Pilot Plant Center for Polymer Synthesis and Processing PAZ in Schkopau, Germany.

“The synthetic rubber can be pro-duced on an industrial scale, using existing plants and equipment,” Mr. Wendler said. “This means that the synthetic rubber offers an excellent alternative to natural rubber — in-cluding the domain of high-perfor-mance truck tires.”

The researchers presented their �ndings April 4 at the annual con-ference of the German Rubber So-ciety, East.

SR development could yield improved truck tires

German researchers have developed a polyisoprene synthetic rubber that they claim exceeds treadwear performance of truck tires made by natural rubber.

Pyrolyx secures funding to expand U.S. plant, buy tire recycler MUNICH, Germany

Recovered carbon black supplier Pyrolyx A.G. has made a series of moves to shore up its still nascent U.S. operations ahead of moving its headquarters to facilities under construction in Terre Haute, Ind.

In the U.S., Pyrolyx said it has secured additional debt funding of $4.5 million and agreed to buy the assets of tire recy-cling business J&R Used Tire Service Inc., which is setting up a tire-shredding facility in Newport, Ind., primarily to supply feed-stock to Pyrolyx. The purchase agreement is valued at $4.5 million.

J&R invested $2.15 million to develop the new plant in Newport, which has a

rated shredding capacity of 350,000 pas-senger tires a month and is part of J&R’s worn-tire collection business that operates throughout Indiana and Illinois and into neighboring states as well, according to Rodney Rogers, former owner.

Pyrolyx said purchasing J&R helps it se-cure the supply of waste tires for its Terre Haute plants and provides it with an op-portunity to approach waste tire genera-tors, such as the major retail chains or tire manufacturers, with a “cradle-to-grave” concept.

Mr. Rogers said he will continue to work with Pyrolyx, evaluating potential addi-tional sites for operations and helping to

secure outlets for the Pyrolyx process’s by-products, such as wire, oil, etc.

Pyrolyx did not identify the source of the new funding, but said it intends to use it to “facilitate the acceleration” of the con-struction of the second plant on the same property. Engineering design and environ-mental permitting for the second plant al-ready has stared, Pyrolyx said.

In Germany, Pyrolyx has closed its Mu-nich headquarters and transferred many of the global administrative functions U.S.-based personnel. The company remains in discussions with its workers at its research and design facility in Stegelitz, Germany, about their future.

Goodyear to upgrade Luxembourg plant MUNICH, Germany

Goodyear has disclosed plans to invest $36 million in its factory in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg, to increase production of OTR tires and make process improvements.

Goodyear announced the in-vestment during the Bauma con-struction industry trade fair in Munich, where it was an exhibitor.

“The demand for premium OTR tires continues to grow worldwide thanks to the expansion of mining and construction operations, as well as developments in the port and industrial segments,” David Anckaert, vice president of Good-year’s commercial tire business in Europe, said.

“This important investment in our operations will allow us to re-spond to the growing demand and to better serve the daily operations of our customers in the �eld with a complete portfolio of high-quality products and total mobility solu-tions both for trucks and off-the-road machines.”

Goodyear did not quantify the impact on the plant’s capacity or workforce. The plant, which opened in 1951, makes medium truck tires in addition to OTR tires.

The company is building a sec-ond plant in Luxembourg, close to the existing Colmar-Berg factory, for the production of premium passenger tires.

The new plant, which is due on stream this year, will use “ad-ditive manufacturing technolo-gies” to produce premium tires in small-batch quantities on-de-mand, Goodyear said in 2017 at ground-breaking ceremonies for the factory.

The company is investing $77 million in the facility, which will produce approximately 500,000 tires annually and create approxi-mately 70 full-time positions.

Evonik claims NR compound could improve fuel economy.

Evonik develops silica/silane technology that could improve TBR tires



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Prometeon adds Tier 3 TBR brandMILAN, Italy

Prometeon Tyre Group S.r.l., the former Pirelli industrial tire business, has launched a Tier 3 associate truck/bus tire brand as part of the compa-ny’s move to a multi-brand approach.

Developed with a special focus on safety, the “Anteo” brand will complement Pirelli as Prometeon’s premium brand, the company said, while an as-yet-unnamed Tier 2 brand is being developed as well for launch later in 2019.

Alexandre Bregantim, chief technol-ogy of�cer, said at a recent launch event in Milan that the Anteo brand products were developed “under real-life condi-tions” at Prometeon’s plants in Turkey and Brazil.

Prometeon claims the new brand features “performance excellence” particularly in terms of wet grip and can be customized according to the speci�c needs of different geo-graphical areas.

The Milan-based company said it plans to market the new brand pri-marily in Europe this year and next, with a North American debut not planned until year-end 2020, when it will become Prometeon’s “value proposition” offering for small and medium �eets searching for a good “value-for-money” product.

North American customers should expect the launch of a Tier 2 brand this year in addition to the Formula brand, which Prometeon said “will remain part of our brand portfolio as it has found a very important role within our channel management strategy.”

“Anteo is the �rst (of the com-pany’s own-brands), con�rming our focus on … the truck and bus sector,” Prometeon Chairman and CEO Giorgio Bruno said during the Milan launch.

The brand launches with six indi-vidual �tments — Pro-S, -D and -T for steer-, drive- and trailer-axle appli-cations; and Mover-M, -S and -D for on-/off-road applications. The Pro-S and -D lines are designed for use on buses and travel coaches as well.

Prometeon is backing the Anteo brand with a “7/7/3 warranty pol-icy” on the casing — i.e., 700,000 miles, seven years, three retreads.

Starting with the launch of An-teo, Prometeon also said it is taking a “platform approach” toward tire sales and services. This will include supplying “the necessary systems and technological solutions” along-side its tires, through an extended Prometeon dealer network.

The tire maker said it will present more details of its new platform-ap-proach in the coming months. Pro-meteon has set up a dedicated web site, anteotyres.com, for the brand.

Pirelli & C. S.p.A. established Prometeon Tyre in 2017 as part of its move to revamp Pirelli into a “pure consumer” tire company following China National Chemical Corp.’s acquisition of Pirelli in 2015.

It’s represented in North America by Prometeon Tyre Group Commer-cial Solutions L.L.C. in San Diego.


Pilot Flying J launchesvirtual maintenance unitATLANTA

Pilot Travel Centers L.L.C. has launched a virtual maintenance system through its Pilot Flying J travel centers for truck owners and �eets as part of its “Truck Care” service platform.

The system, dubbed “Fleet Center,” provides �eets real-time visibility and �exibility to manage their equip-ment 24/7 — thus reducing downtime, increasing speed of service and improving account management for �eets and professional drivers.

The system also allows Truck Care technicians to fo-cus on providing service to get drivers back on the road.

Pilot Travel Centers launched the Truck Care program in 2017. It’s available in 36 states via 24 service centers operating more than 135 roadside assistance vehicles to provide drivers with maintenance needs on and off the interstate.

The virtual maintenance system will provide �eets with access to time-saving features, the company said, such as:

• Service management — scheduling services, gener-ating and authorizing work orders and receiving detailed cost-of-repair estimates online.

• Real-time noti�cations — receive immediate status

updates for en-route, on-site and roll times.• Live chat — users can live chat with Truck Care rep-

resentatives for customer service needs.• Service records — �eets will bene�t from reduced

paperwork and improved accuracy of records with full access to service history and transaction details.

“By providing a centralized portal, Fleet Center will make it easier and faster for �eets to manage the service of their trucks,” said Dave Latimer, vice president of shop strategies and operations for Pilot Flying J Truck Care.

“Our goal is to remove the stress and complexity of man-aging �eet service and get drivers back on the road as quick-ly as possible by providing our customers a window into their Truck Care account at the touch of a button.”

The company is planning to add Truck Care to 10 more service centers throughout 2019.

Pilot Flying J centers with Truck Care service on site are located in Arkansas, Arizona, California (two), Georgia, Illinois (two), Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina (two), South Dakota, Tennessee (two), Texas (three), Virginia and Wyoming.

Pilot Flying J stocks Bridgestone-, Continental-, Giti-, Michelin- and Yokohama-brand tires.

LAS VEGASA strong economy and cyclical

truck replacements will spur signi�-cant organic growth in demand in the trucking industry through 2019, ac-cording to IHS Markit research.

Overall, the trucking market in the U.S. is undergoing changes with new regulations and vehicle technologies, according to Dawn Brusseau, IHS associate director for commercial vehicle solutions, who addressed at-tendees at an Auto-motive Aftermar-ket Products Expo event in Las Vegas last November.

“We’ve never seen such an in�ux of emerging technologies, powertrain innovations, as well as legislation changes and just a whole mix of new tires,” she said.

“Your future is secure. Trucking is only gaining in popularity. … The need for trucking is strong and will continue to be strong within the market.”

IHS research of U.S. vehicle reg-istrations noted a major increase in registrations of Class 8 tractors in the �rst half of 2018, a trend that is ex-pected to continue this year.

“Class 8 tractor growth is basical-ly on �re,” Ms. Brusseau said, noting IHS expects Class 8 registrations to increase about 8 percent to 340,000 units in 2019, versus 2018.

“Basically this is due to economic improvement and export levels are up. An increase in exports is indicative to more Class 8s since it’s linked to line-haul traf�c.”

She also said �eets are in the pro-cess of replacing aging trucks, noting that 2015 was the last time there was a jump in Class 8 volumes.

“2019 will be a peak year in the cur-rent buying cycle,” she said. “Robust

freight conditions have been the pri-mary support of Class 8 registrations in 2018. Order intake is strong, although supply constraints have inhibited the actual �nal delivery of the vehicles.”

With OEM back orders, she ex-pected the replacement cycle to ex-tend into late 2019 and 2020.

“We believe the completion of this buying cycle will be completed by 2020.”

As of 2017, 953,000 tractors on the road were �ve years old or younger, while 457,000 were between six and 10 years old. The latter number has been shrinking in recent years.

“This demonstrates that the �eet is getting younger, but at a relative-ly modest pace. Typically, line-haul trucks average 80,000 to 100,000 miles a year and are replaced within �ve years,” Ms. Brusseau said.

Fleets with one to 500 vehicles ac-counted for 63 percent of new Class 4-8 vehicle registrations and 84 per-cent of vehicles in operation (VIO) in 2017, compared with �eets with more than 500 vehicles.

Because a large portion of the U.S. trucking industry involves very small �eets, “this means any dramatic change in technology is a huge risk to small �eet owners,” Ms. Brusseau said.

“It’s important to remember that the risk appetite of the smaller �eets when modeling a dramatic technolo-gy changeover, it is likely only large �eets will have the capacity to adopt these technologies, at least initially.”

Meanwhile, growth in Class 1-3 van/pickup trucks over the past year is tied to growth in the construction and ecommerce market, Ms. Brus-seau said, noting the increasing pop-ularity of SUVs and pickup trucks at the expense of passenger vans.

The American Trucking Associ-ations (ATA) reported that the ad-vanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 6.6 percent in 2018, the largest annual gain since 1998 and an improvement

over the 3.8-percent increase in 2017. “The good news is that 2018 was

a banner year for truck tonnage, wit-nessing the largest annual increase we’ve seen in two decades,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said.

“With that said, there is evidence that the industry and economy is moderating as tonnage fell a com-bined total of 5.6 percent in October and November after hitting an all-time high in October.”

Challenges for �eetsIt’s a great time to be in truck-

ing, according to Ms. Brusseau, but there are challenges, including:

• Regulatory pressure — There has been an increase in regulatory oversight with the electronic logging-device man-date recording drivers’ hours of service and emission requirements to reduce CO2 levels and fuel consumption up to 27 percent for commercial tractors;

• Energy rivalry — In an effort to meet fuel economy demands, interest in alternative fuels, especially bio-diesel, is expected to increase in the next decade although currently diesel dominates with two-thirds of com-mercial vehicles;

• New technologies/logistical op-portunities are being considered to speed up delivery of packages; and

• Driver challenges — To address driver shortages, �eets are offering more home time, larger bonuses and better wages.

“Large �eets are competing in the heated marketplace of supply and demand. With a limited supply of drivers and increased demand for shipping, �eets are investing in their �eets to achieve maximum fuel ef�-ciency and attract new drivers,” Ms. Brusseau said.

Commercial trucks have never been more comfortable and ef�cient than they are today, she said, as OEMs try to make trucks safer and more comfortable in order to attract applicants for driving jobs.

By Kathy [email protected]

Economy, aging �eets spur boom in trucking industry

Prometeon’s new TBR brand will complement Pirelli’s premium brand.

Brusseau



Tire makers launch products at TMC, MATSAKRON

Tire makers large and small, domes-tic and foreign, leveraged their presenc-es at the recent Technology & Main-tenance Council and Mid-American Trucking Show expositions to launch new products and/or expand existing product lines.

Among them are new products from:

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. add-ed a steer-axle tire to the Cooper PRO Series long-haul truck tire line it launched in April 2018.

The LHS-designated steer tire complements the LHD long-haul drive tire in the PRO Series. The tire will be available initially in size 295/75R22.5 with other sizes becom-ing available in June.

Gary Schroeder, executive director of Cooper’s global truck and bus tire business, called the LHS the “�ag-ship” product of his company’s com-mercial tire lineup.

“We purposefully created this tire to give �eets what they are asking for — a low cost of ownership solution to reduce tire program costs and im-

prove a �eet’s bottom line.”Mr. Schroeder said Cooper will of-

fer the tire at a “best buy” price point, but he did not disclose actual pricing information. Cooper is backing the LHS with a seven-year, two-retread warranty that also includes full re-placement value for the �rst 50 per-cent of treadwear.

The new tire features Cooper’s ECO (Energy Conservation Optimi-zation) technology that combines tire design, compounding and construc-tion for a tire that exceeds SmartWay rolling-resistance standard require-ments by 15 percent and meets the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions re-quirements set for 2021.

The LHS provides 18/32nds-inch of tread depth and features a wider footprint than most steer tires on the market, up to a full inch in many cas-es, Cooper said. Mr. Schroeder noted that the wider footprint provides bet-ter traction while promoting longer, more even wear without impacting rolling resistance.

To enhance even wear, the tire has a decoupling groove to mini-mize shoulder wear and features a patent-pending stone-ejector design

with a stepped groove wall in the tread pattern.

Cooper also has built in its Wear Square visual tread-depth indicator on the tire’s shoulder ribs. The indicator shows the tread depth through �ve dif-ferent evolving image icons, with the last one showing when the tire should be pulled for retreading. The

indicators also can show a tire tech-nician when there’s an alignment problem or uneven tire issue.

Cooper is producing the tire at its Cooper Qingdao Tire Co. venture in Qingdao, China, according to the tire’s DOT code.

On its coopertrucktires.com site, Cooper indicated that it plans to add an LHT trailer-axle version later this year as well.

Goodyear expanded the portfo-lio of the Wrangler Fortitude HT, a long-lasting “rugged” light truck tire with sizes designed for the growing cargo van segment.

Initially launched in 2014, the For-titude HT offers an optimized tread

design, tough tread compound, full-depth sipes and wide circumferential grooves to help reduce road noise, provide uniform wear and improve tread life, Goodyear said.

“We listened to customer feedback and saw an opportunity to meet in-creasing demand,” said Mike Dwyer, Goodyear’s chief customer of�cer, North America consumer.

Goodyear is expanding the cur-

rent line of 35 SUV/CUV and light truck sizes with three C-type sizes, including the popular 235/65R16C, and 10 heavy-duty LT sizes, for a total of 48 sizes. The size expansion will help dealers address a segment that has grown by more than 600,000 full-size cargo vans over the past two years, Goodyear said.

Some vehicle �tments for the Wrangler Fortitude HT are the Ford Transit, Ram ProMaster, Chevrolet Express, Mercedes Sprinter, Nissan NV3500, Ford F150/F250/F350 and Chevrolet Silverado 1500/2500/3500.

The Akron-based tire maker also reported that the Endurance LHS long-haul steer tire, which debuted in June, has provided �eet owners up to 210,000 miles in original tread life.

According to Mahesh Kavaturu, Goodyear’s director of technology, commercial tires, 13 �eets have eval-uated the tire, logging more than 13 million combined miles. More than 200 �eets are running the product.

The Endurance LHS is Smart-Way-veri�ed and is a key part of Goodyear’s Total Solution of prod-ucts, services and �eet management tools.

The tire features a wear-resistant tread compound; a dual-layer tread with uniform stiffness for slow, even wear; rigid casing construction for a consistent footprint; and casing com-pounds for low rolling resistance.

“Long-haul �eets are the biggest seg-ment of the North American trucking market,” Mr. Kavaturu said. “When it comes to tires, these companies mea-sure every mile. And they want to get as many miles as possible out of their tire investment, without sacri�cing oth-er performance bene�ts like fuel ef�-ciency, even wear and traction.”

The Endurance LHS is available in four sizes — 295/75R22.5; 11R22.5; 285/75R24.5; and 11R24.5 — in load ranges G and H.

Hankook Tire America Corp. showcased tires made with its pro-prietary “Smartec TBR” technology, which the �rm described as a man-ufacturing process that incorporates an integrated package of �ve key tire performance factors: safety, mileage, anti-chip and cut, retreadability and traction.

The �rst tire on the market built with this technology is the SmartFlex DL15, a long- and regional-haul drive tire that offers improved fuel economy performance thanks to an updated cen-tral rib and semi block tread pattern.

The new tire also features a pat-ented self-regenerating siping system that is designed to provide enhanced traction throughout the original tread’s lifetime.

Other products being launched with the technology are the e3 MAX DL21 and e3 WiDE TL21 wide-base long-haul drive-axle and trailer tires, respectively.

“These three new tires represent the latest from our innovation team bringing not only a more dynamic TBR portfolio, but products that will go the distance for those who depend on them every day,” Rob Williams, senior director of TBR sales, said.

The e3 MAX DL21 offers “superi-or” fuel ef�ciency, Hankook claims, thanks to the use of “advanced” rubber technology and a closed shoulder tread design. A “Heel and Toe Stopper” tread design helps strengthen tread block rigidity while minimizing irreg-ular wear of the tire over its lifetime.

The e3 WiDE TL21 is a wide-base trailer position tire, size 445/50R22.5, designed for high-mileage applica-tions and which incorporates Han-kook’s “Spiral-Coil” technology.

Both of the e3 products are Smart-Way-veri�ed.

Michelin North America Inc. introduced an all-weather tire for commercial truck and van use, the Agilis CrossClimate, and a pair of

BFGoodrich-brand commercial truck tires, the Highway Control S and T.

Designed speci�cally for ¾- and 1-ton pick-up trucks and vans used in commercial applications and the increasingly popular European van platforms, the Agilis CrossClimate launches in the U.S. and Canada in 16 LT- and �ve C-metric sizes.

The targeted vehicles are used in local and parcel delivery �eets, food and beverage and temperature-con-trolled vehicles, telecom and utility �eets and trades, Michelin said.

Adam Murphy, vice president of B2B marketing for Michelin, called the Agilis CrossClimate Michelin’s “most durable” tire for heavy-duty light trucks and lighter commercial applications.

“Through engineering and inno-vation, Michelin has developed a tire that lasts longer under heavy loads, and also offers shorter wet-stopping distances and better snow traction than other leading competitive com-mercial tires,” Mr. Murphy said.

The light-truck sizes range from LT215/85R16 to LT285/60R20 for platforms such as the Ford F-Series and Econoline, Chevrolet Express and Silverado, GMC Sierra, Dodge Ram 2500 and Mercedes Sprinter. It also will be available in �ve C-Metric sizes for the Ford Transit, Ram Pro-Master and Nissan NV200.

Among the tire’s features are:

Michelin Agilis CrossClimate LT (left) and C-Metric versions

Hankook Smart Flex DL15 SEE TIRES, PAGE 24

Cooper PRO Series LHS

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TIRE BUSINESS seeks your help in nominating an independent tire dealer or retreader who, during the past year, has made sig-ni�cant contributions to the betterment of his or her community through charitable or public service work. The person selected as the winner will have demonstrated an unsel�sh commitment to the betterment of others.

Nominations will be judged by an independent committee outside of the tire industry. The winner will receive the Tire Dealer Human-itarian Award Medal and a $2,500 donation to the charity of his or her choice. The award will be presented during the 2019 Tire Indus-try Association convention/SEMA Show Nov. 4, in Las Vegas.

The award is open to any independent tire dealer or retreader in North America, regardless of business size or sales volume. Nomi-nees must have an ownership in the business. Self nominations are welcome. Nominators are encouraged to renominate candidates if they are not past winners. To enter your nominee, complete the online nomination form, upload detailed support material and mail as soon as possible.

Support material is important to the nomination and must include:• A detailed explanation of the charitable organization(s) or public service activity(ies) in which the nominee is involved.• The breadth and depth of the nominee’s involvement in charitable and/or public service activities.• The impact the nominee has had on the charitable and/or public service activity.• Support materials such as newspaper clippings, photographs, letters of commendations and previous awards.

Kent OlsenOlson Tire & Auto Service

Wausau, Wisc.

Mark SmithMidas of Richmond

Richmond, Va.

2017 2018

Nominate an independent tire dealer or retreader who is making a difference in his or her community.

Go online to submit your nomination form:www.tirebusiness.com/humanitarian

Entry deadline July 31, 2019

http://www.tirebusiness.com/humanitarian


for a long time, including being an MRT af� liate since 1998. Its plant in Omaha is one of only a few hy-brid MRT plants — mold-cure and precure production together — in the Midwest.

Bauer Built, founded in 1944 by G.F. “Sam” Bauer, celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. The orig-inal business was in bulk petroleum, but the company began selling tires and related services a year later. The company continues to operate a bulk petroleum business out of its headquarters in Durand.

Other deals of the past year include:• Best One Tire & Service took

over nine former Becker Tire loca-tions in Kansas and has converted them to Best One Tire signage.

• Rice Tire Co. acquired Central Tire Co. of Verona, Va., expanding its reach to 11 commercial/retail lo-

cations in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. and two retread plants. Central Tire consists of a re-tail store, a commercial store and a retread plant that services customers throughout Virginia and into parts of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. (See separate story on page 11.)

• Intermodal retreader New Pride Corp. was acquired by last year by Intermodal chassis leasing company FlexiVan Leasing Inc., which sees the retread business as complemen-tary to its own.

FlexiVan President and CEO Charlie Wellins noted that his com-pany had a “strong vendor part-nership” with New Pride for years and sees the acquisition as a way of “building greater value for our cus-tomers and FlexiVan. ”

FlexiVan said the New Pride man-agement team would continue to run the day-to-day operations of Oakland, Calif. -based New Pride as a wholly owned subsidiary of FlexiVan.

Financial terms were not dis-closed.

Established in 1983 as a subsid-iary of a South Korean diversi� ed company, New Pride has focused on supplying new and retreaded tires for the intermodal transportation in-dustry in North and Central Amer-ica. The company’s precured and

mold-cure retread plant in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., is rated at 300 tires a day.

New Pride operates tire mount-ing and distribution activities at its headquarters in Oakland and in Ke-nilworth, N.J.

FlexiVan and New Pride Tire are both owned by Castle & Cooke Inc., a Westlake, Calif.-based diversi� ed

holding company. • Purcell Tire & Rubber Co. ac-

quired Northwest Retreaders of Gresh-am, Ore., in a move that effectively doubled Purcell’s OTR tire retread-ing capacity and strengthened its still burgeoning position in the Pa-ci� c Northwest.

The deal involved Northwest Re-treaders’ assets only, Purcell said, meaning the retreader’s parent com-pany, NRI Inc., continues to operate its new tire wholesale business un-der that name.

The past year also witnessed the disappearance of TCi Tire Centers Inc. as a player in the commercial tire/retreading sector.

A business unit of Michelin North America Inc., TCi sold the last of its commercial assets — � ve sales/ser-vice outlets and one retread plant in California — last October to Border Tire of El Paso, Texas.

That deal expanded Border Tire’s footprint — which up to then had comprised � ve commercial locations in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and an Oliver system retread plant — into California. The deal covers TCi commercial sales/service locations in Bakers� eld, Van Nuys, Fontana, San-ta Fe Springs and Lakeside, Calif., and an MRT plant in Fontana.

Earlier in the year Quality Tire Co. of Salt Lake City acquired TCi locations in Colorado Springs, Hen-derson and Loveland, Colo., and an MRT plant in Hudson, Colo., expanding the dealership’s reach

to eight locations and three retread plants in three states.

Quality Tire already was a Mi-chelin dealer and Oliver Rubber-af-� liated retreader.

These deals covered the last re-maining assets of a commercial tire sales entity that at its peak com-prised more than 125 service loca-tions and 17 retread plants.

Meanwhile, the nation’s leading truck stop operators — Love’s Trav-el Stops, TravelCenters of America and Pilot Travel Centers — continue to step up their tire-related activities as revenue streams.

Love’s Travel Stops, for example, is planning to open 40 Travel Stops this year — including more than 30 that will have a Love’s Truck Tire Care or Speedco unit on site — ex-panding the truck stop operator’s network to 500-plus locations.

“We aim to surpass our customers’ needs and are dedicated to improv-ing the lives of professional drivers,” Co-CEO Greg Love said earlier this year, noting the new locations will provide more than 3,000 truck park-ing spaces.

Love’s did not disclose its pro-jected investment for the expansion, which follows the opening of 35 lo-

cations in 2018.Since Love’s acquired Speedco in

2017, Speedco began offering tire and lube services, making it the largest

oil change and preventive mainte-nance network in the U.S. Speedco expanded its tire brand offerings into lo-cations nationwide in 2018 to include Ae-olus, Bridgestone, BFGoodrich, Dayton, Goodyear, Kelly, Michelin and Yokoha-ma new tires along with Love’s in-house-sourced retreads.

Love’s established a network of four Oliver Rubber-af� liated retread plants in 2016 throughout the U.S. as part of its tire supply strategy.

TravelCenters of America, which launched an aggressive commercial tire supply program in 2017, extend-ed the scope of that program with the opening of its own retread plant.

The company’s � rst plant, which opened in July, is a Goodyear system facility in Bowling Green, Ohio, that serves as a test bed for TA to monitor as it considers expanding retreading as part of its business model.

The 32,000-sq.-ft. plant, a reno-vated facility that has housed two other retreaders over the past sever-al years, opened with a � ve-day-a-week, one-shift schedule capable of producing 115 tires per day initially.

The facility also has a 20,000-sq.-ft. warehouse on site and offers new tire sales, tire inspection/repair and emergency roadside call services.

Pilot Travel Centers L.L.C. has launched a virtual maintenance system through its Pilot Flying J travel centers for truck owners and � eets as part of its “Truck Care” service platform.

The system, dubbed “Fleet Center,” provides � eets real-time visibility and � exibility to manage their equipment 24/7 — thus reducing downtime, in-creasing speed of service and improv-ing account management for � eets and professional drivers, according to the company.

The system also allows Truck Care technicians to focus on provid-ing faster service to get drivers back on the road. (See story on page 21.)

durability over extended mileage; towing and hauling heavy loads; improved protection from impacts and punc-tures; and all-weather performance.

The C-Metric tire has a direction-al tread design, while the LT-metric uses a non-directional tread pattern, Michelin said.

Both versions carry the “Three Peak Mountain Snow� ake” designa-tion from the U.S. Tire Manufactur-ers Association, indicating they meet

the tire industry’s requirements for severe snow service.

The BFGoodrich Highway Control S and T are designed for use in long-haul, tanker, refrigerated and dry-van truckload applications.

The SmartWay-veri� ed BFG High-way Control S (steer/all-position) and T (trailer) replace the BFGoodrich ST 244 and TR 144 in the BFGoodrich


product range, Michelin said. The Control S launches in sizes

11R22.5 and 11R24.5 (Load Range G and H), 275/80R22.5 (Load Range G), and 285/80R24.5 (Load Range G), while the Control T is offered in sizes 11R22.5, 275/80R22.5, 11R24.5 and 285/75R24.5 (Load Range G).

The products’ features include new sidewall compounds designed to provide fuel ef� ciency without sac-ri� cing wear; improved shoulder rib with microsipes; optimized micro-siping to � ght the onset of irregular treadwear; serpentine � ow-through grooves for improved water evacua-tion and all-weather traction; and vari-able-groove wall to help reduce stone retention and extend the casing life.

Michelin is offering a “Work Hard” mileage-satis-faction guar-antee for the � rst year of use on the Highway Control S tire, a two-year, even-wear satisfaction guarantee on the Con-trol T and a � ve-year, two-retread manufacturer’s limited casing guar-antee on both tires when retreaded by an authorized Michelin Retread Technologies or Oliver Retread dealer.

Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. is adding an all-weather medium truck tire, the M655, to its portfolio for year-round

use in mixed-service regional appli-cations.

Suitable for both drive and steer ap-plications, it includes the North Amer-ican industry’s Three-Peak Mountain Snow� ake symbol on its sidewall in-dicating its ability to perform in snow and ice.

Already available in Canada, the M655 offers on- and off-road per-formance thanks to a wide tread and “aggressive” tread blocks with multi-wave sipes to optimize traction. The tread design features saddle notches and stone ejectors to help support the blocks to retain overall stiffness, while evacuating potentially harmful stones and debris. A cut- and chip-re-sistant tread compound and built-in sidewall protector add to the tire’s durability.

It is designed and manufactured at Toyo’s plant in Kuwana, Japan, using the � rm’s proprietary “e-balance” casing technology for greater stabil-ity and longevity under heavy loads.

The M655 all-weather tire will be available in sizes 225/70R19.5 14-ply and 245/70R19.5 16-ply.

Vipal Rubber showcased its VL130 ECO tread, a line with low rolling resistance and low heat gen-eration and SmartWay veri� ed un-der U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.

The company also featured its VT220 line for medium- and long-dis-tance highway applications. Produced with a compound for operating in low temperatures, the VT220 is suitable for muddy and snowy conditions, Vipal said.

Yokohama Tire Corp. is adding a deep-tread drive-axle tire and a re-gional haul trailer tire to its commer-cial tire portfolio.

Both tires — 712L long-haul drive and 114R UWB regional haul — are SmartWay-veri� ed low-resistance prod-ucts and are considered long lasting and fuel ef� cient, Yokohama said.

The 712L, which will be man-ufactured at Yokohama’s plant in West Point, Miss., is available in four sizes: 295/75R22.5, 11R22.5, 285/75R24.5 and 11R24.5.

The 114R UWB is the successor to the RY407 UWB and will be available later in the year in size 445/50R22.5.

Tom Clauer, Yokohama’s senior manager of commercial and OTR product planning, said the 712L’s deep tread “offers advanced wear resistance, top-tier fuel-ef� ciency and traction, and tough, durable con-struction. It’s designed for � eets to keep their trucks rolling for a long, long time.”

Toyo M655

Yokohama 712L

BFGoodrich Highway Control S

Tires

� rst year of use on the Highway Control S tire, a two-year, even-wear

Michelin is offering

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 CommercialTire Business Special Feature CommercialTire&RetreadingReport


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Tire Prossaid are designed to increase traf�c to fran-chisees.

• The debut of consumer tools designed to help franchisees connect with their consumers. The Tire Pros marketing team, along with the Mission Based Council (MBC), said the plat-form allows franchisees to manage and engage with online reviews, uses text messaging to communicate with customers and receive in-sights about consumers’ experiences through an integrated Net Promoter Score module.

• The relaunch of TirePros.com, featuring full e-commerce capabilities. The website will be launching in the third quarter, with new deal-er pages that the group said will enhance what currently is being used. Each facility will have the ability to personalize its location’s site to be matched to its community and region. Consum-ers who purchase tires will be able to set ap-pointments online, creating what the group said is a “simple, hassle-free buying experience.”

• Revamp Tire Pros University. Tire Pros execs told dealers that a revamp of the plat-form is coming in 2019, including a learning and development tool that was developed and delivered in partnership with the Training Mission-Based Council. The platform will be available free to all franchisees, Tire Pros said, making it easier for dealers to attract and retain quality employees.

The micro-learning tool will allow fran-chisees and employees to be more compet-itive in an industry where the labor market has become even more challenging, accord-ing to the marketing group.

• Use the Pros Partnership Analysis as part of its pro�t-maximizing tools. During 2019, Tire Pros retail account managers will collaborate with franchisees to analyze key metrics in their business and identify areas of focus to enhance pro�tability. Each participating franchisee will receive these business metrics several times per year.

• Strengthen vendor partnerships. The mar-keting group released several new products as well as an exclusive promotion plan with long-time partner Continental Tire the Americas. In addition, Tire Pros detailed an exclusive new program for franchisees, the Tire Pros Edge Program driven by Cooper Tires.

According to Tire Pros, franchisees will have the opportunity to earn multiple pro-gram and promotional bene�ts on their Cooper- and select Hercules-brand purchas-es under this program.

Tire Pros also highlighted some dealers who were extremely successful in the previous year. Some of the key awards presented during the conference awards breakfast included:y Big Discount Tire Pros of Fair�eld,

Calif. — Hercules Tires Strongman of the Year Award;yy Carson City Tire Pros of Carson City,

Nev. — Continental Tires Rookie of the Year Award; and y Van’s Tire Pros of North Ridgeville,

Ohio — Synchrony Rookie of the Year Award.

Steven Moss, chairman of the Tire Pros National Dealer Council and owner of Wil-son Tires Pros & Automotive in Elon Col-lege, N.C., said everyone works together “day in and day out to make the Tire Pros organization better. For a franchise program to work well, it must be a partnership with a common set of objectives.

“One of the resounding themes I’ve heard at this conference is (that) we’re all family,” Mr. Moss said. “When we work together, we can win together.”

More than 50 vendors, representing mar-keting, auto parts, technology, tire manufac-turers, tools and supply products, participat-ed in the annual vendor fair.

Recently, ATD announced that nine inde-pendent tire dealers in nine states joined Tire Pros over the past few months. At that time, Tire Pros said it had more than 640 locations across the U.S.

OKCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1locations with an expanded line of tires and au-tomotive products.”

The group’s plan to build a more robust on-line platform will open a range of possibilities in e-commerce, Mr. Caldwell said.

The new online presence will allow customers to buy “any-thing about a car, in a car, on a car or under a car” at oktire.com, he said, noting this should appeal both to do-it-yourselfers and traditional in-store OK Tire customers.

This strategy will include an expanded port-folio of automotive-related products available through the e-commerce portal, he added. “People are buying these kinds of products on-line today, … we want to give them the op-portunity to buy from oktire.com.”

Local dealers will be cred-ited with sales completed on-line, he stressed.

One key element of im-proving the brand’s digital presence, Mr. Ruth-erford said, is to automate a lot of the business functions of running a dealership, thus freeing up time for the individual dealers to spend deal-ing with their customers.

Among the features will be a more comprehen-sive on-line scheduling function.

Among the speci�c physical improvement are:• expanding a distribution center in Valley-

�eld, Quebec, to 200,000 square feet by mid-2020;

• relocating centers in Manitoba and in New-foundland to larger, more modern facilities;

• opening a warehouse near Mississauga, On-tario, that will be operational by 2021.

These are in addition to a project that doubled the size of a warehouse in Calgary last year.

In terms of growing the franchise network, Mr. Rutherford said OK Tire management for the most part does it the old-fashioned way — studying the market and singling out businesses and business owners they feel will help strength-en the network.

The majority of new OK Tire franchisees are existing inde-pendent dealers, Mr. Rutherford said, and a measurable number of these are referrals from exist-ing OK Tire dealers. The com-

pany is starting to see more “institutional” inves-tors as well, he added, who are evaluating which franchise businesses provide the best returns.

Most OK Tire franchisees are smaller busi-nesses — one to two stores — that are realizing they don’t have the resources to devote to staying competitive in today’s evolving marketplace.

Recruiting efforts will focus heavily on On-tario and Quebec, executives said, which are the most populous provinces and where they see room to expand.

Mr. Caldwell also remarked that the �rm will consider building its network through “acquisi-tions that complement our existing network” as part of the strategy to add value and pro�tability.

In addition, OK Tire has begun offering its customers a warranty that provides coverage in the U.S. as well as Canada on certain types of work done at OK Tire franchises.

The new warranty — available at no cost to the customer — provides coverage for 12 months or 12,400 miles, whichever comes �rst. Custom-ers who experience a problem can call a helpline and be directed to the closest authorized repair facility.

If the customer is within 25 miles of the OK Tire location that performed the service, he or she must �rst contact that store and present a copy of the repair order. If the vehicle is inop-erable and is more than 25 miles away from the original OK Tire facility (either in Canada or the U.S.), the customer may be eligible for certain towing and/or rental car bene�ts.

As the Exxpress Tire wholesale operation has grown and surpassed 1 million tires in yearly shipments, the company hired its �rst full-time logistics and distribution executive in October. John Judge, supply chain director, has 25 years of logistics experience in the U.S. Air Force and continues his service as a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard. In addition, he spent 10 years at Praxair Inc. in logistics and supply chain.

“Logistics and distribution can be a lot more successful if there is a little more science put into it and a little more study and planning and train-ing put into it, and so we really wanted to have somebody spending full time on that side of the business,” David Simons, Dunn Tire executive vice president and CFO, said.

To get the most out of its warehouses, the company has gone to stacking tires four tiers high, the execu-tives said. “We are gearing up for an even better busi-ness in 2019 than we had in 2018,” Mr. Clave said.

While Exxpress Tire has no current plans for a new warehouse or an expansion to current facilities, “we know we need to have a bigger and better build-ing in Syracuse and a new, bigger building in Erie, Pa.,” Mr. Simons said. Those are probably a couple of years down the road, he added.

The company has the ability to expand in Rochester, he said, “if some things fall our way.”

“What we’re trying to do is �gure out what our absolute maximum capacity is to get tires in and out per building, whether we had it shipped, wheth-er we changed hours or do different things,” Mr. Pittner said. “We’re �guring out what the maxi-mum capacity to handle per day in the building is.”

After experiencing some technical challeng-es in 2018, Exxpress Tire expects to debut a re-vamped website in 2019’s second quarter. A key feature will be the site’s ability to provide the delivery date, once an order is placed.

The new website will offer improved naviga-tion, the ability to communicate news, events and other content better, as well as enhanced searchability. The website will be compatible on


Exxpress

laptops, tablets and smartphones, Mr. Clave said, “and will become the company’s primary com-munications tool.”

Talking brie�y about the Exxpress Tire Car Care Centers dealer marketing program, Mr. Clave said the company has reduced the cost of social media marketing, making it a silver level enhancement from gold. The move is aimed at helping smaller independent tire dealers create top-of-mind visibility in their local markets.

“Some of us are technically averse, social me-dia averse,” Mr. Clave said. “This is a requisite (today). We can no longer ignore social media and think, ‘Yeah, well that is this generation.’

“Now this is us,” he said. “And in many cases, it’s our parents.”

Rutherford


Dutiesantidumping — will affect imports from China.

It should be noted that the USTMA reports re�ect the domestic industry’s thoughts on shipments, not demand, which is affected by a spectrum of in�uences.

According to various sources, truck-ing activity is expected to keep pace with, if not exceed, that of 2018, which accord-ing to American Trucking Associations (ATA) data was 6.6 percent ahead of 2017. The ATA noted, however, that the pace of growth started slowing in the fourth quarter and has been up and down so far in 2018.

According to the ATA, trucks moved 10.8 billion tons of freight in 2017, gen-erating $700 billion in annual revenue. The U.S. trucking industry employs 3.5 million drivers and 4.2 million more in related jobs.

Another indicator of freight growth is registrations of new vehicles. According to IHS Markit, registrations of Class 8 ve-hicles are expected to rise about 8 percent this year over 2018. (See more detailed story on page 21.)

An early indicator of how prices might be affected could be Bridgestone Amer-icas Tire Operations’ decision to raise prices on all Dayton-brand truck and bus radial tires sold in the U.S. by 20 percent, effective March 5.

Bridgestone said the price change is in response to increased business costs and other market dynamics. Bridgestone sources most of the Dayton-brand product from China.

Bridgestone raised prices on Dayton truck and bus tires sold in the U.S. and Canada last September by 10 percent.

Most companies importing/distributing Chinese truck tires contacted by Tire Busi-

ness declined to comment on pricing or didn’t return calls. Some wholesalers said they’d seen notices of increases up to 30 percent.

One company that did respond was China Manufacturers Alliance L.L.C. (CMA), which distributes the Double Coin brand. According to CMA Vice President Walt Weller, his company — which received one of the lowest import duties and which is importing more and more from Thailand — has announced a 5-percent price increase.

One segment of the industry that wel-comed the increased import duties was the retreading community, which has complained for the past few years about the detrimental effect low-priced new im-ported tires has on retreading.

According to Retread Instead — the U.S. retreading advocacy group — the imposition of the new duties “will funda-mentally change the supply side of new tires in the U.S. and over the next two years” and hasten a return to an improved ratio of retreads to new tires sold and put into service in the U.S.

Because of tariffs, the group said, there is more opportunity to grow than there has been in years.

“We are encouraging retreaders to ‘get back to the basics’ and promote total tire management programs to �eets by con-ducting �eet inspections, out-of-service tire analysis and recommending good sol-id tire management policies for �eets that includes managing total tire life to receive maximum bene�ts,” the organization said.

With the tariffs in place, the retreading industry hopes to see increased supplies of better quality truck tires that will be more repairable and retreadable, deliver-ing lower total life-cycle cost and reduc-ing the negative impact on the environ-ment.

Will Cavendish, left, of Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, and his wife, Barb, far right, visit with Dave Simons, Dunn Tire executive vice president and CFO, his wife Elizabeth, and Dunn Tire Supply Chain Director John Judge at a wine pairing social event during the 2019 Dunn Tire Dealer Trip.

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Diadra Lewis, second from left, of Continental Tire the Americas, and friend Denly Lettsome, left, visit with Jodi and Paul Pittner of Dunn Tire during the wine tasting social event.

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