Tire dealers know manufacturers are on the verge of raising consumer tire prices. For the first time, Burt Brothers Tire & Service Inc. is actively marketing the news to its customers, urging them to act before Oct. 1. Jeremy Burt, an owner and the operations and marketing manager at Burt Brothers, says in the past employees have told customers about upcoming price hikes if they were shopping in store. But with the latest increases, the company decided to put the message on paper and issue a press release in hopes of reaching customers.
“We have not done a price warning like this before,” Burt told Modern Tire Dealer. He said with winter ahead, most customers “try to squeeze the last dime out of their tires and it creates a monster rush for us in the fall. So we wanted to give them a good reason to save dollars getting ahead.”
Burt Brothers has 11 locations along the Wasatch Front in the Salt Lake City, Utah, market. The company says “most major tire manufacturers” have issued price increases of 5% to 6%, including these brands: Bridgestone, Firestone, Goodyear, Kelly, Dunlop, Pirelli, Hankook and Toyo.
Some of the price hikes went into effect in September, but most begin Oct. 1, and are due to increased raw materials prices.
Burt says the tire dealership is absorbing the costs of early increases through the end of September.
