Steve Shannon Tire Co. sells passenger, light truck, medium truck and OTR tires. It also provides a wide range of services, including emergency roadside assistance, mechanical work, fleet management programs and more.
But the Bloomsburg, Pa.–based dealership had never owned or operated a retread plant until this past December, when it opened a 10,000-square-foot shop.
The plant retreads nearly 100 medium truck tires per day for a wide range of commercial truck applications, says Jesse Shannon, one of the dealership’s owners. Daily production will soon ramp up to 200 units.
“The plant is on a 10-acre piece of ground that’s leveled and the building is set up for future expansion,” says Jesse.
Owning it
Steve Shannon Tire historically outsourced its retread production.
“We always wanted to open a retread shop close to our corporate office and main distribution center,” says Jesse. “Then about a year-and-a-half ago, a building right across the street became available. The owner was ready to sell, so it was time to jump in.”
While waiting for the right property, Steve Shannon Tire had been “putting feelers out” to tread rubber suppliers, he says.
“Pre-Q Galgo reached out to us. They hooked us up with Central Marketing, which got us hooked up with brand new Matteuzzi retreading machines.”
Pre-Q Galgo also is Steve Shannon Tire’s tread rubber supplier.
“They offer all the support and expertise of a major brand rubber supplier, but you also get to maintain your independence,” explains Jesse. “That was a big thing for us. We didn’t want to be dictated to.”
He admits that staffing the plant “was a little tough. We started hiring people a couple of months early - all new. We found places for them either in our shops or warehouse, knowing they would eventually work at our plant. We also brought people in from our other stores.”
Pre-Q Galgo supplied a training team that spent three weeks “turning all of those guys into retreaders.”
Inside jobs
Having its own plant gives Steve Shannon Tire the ability to control production and expedite turnaround times, says Jesse. Most of the dealership’s commercial tire and retread customers are local.
“We were falling behind” working with the company’s third party retread supplier, which “would come by once a week and pick up casings, but sometimes didn’t have the tread rubber” to process them.
“We couldn’t get the turnaround times as quick as customers wanted. And demand kept growing as we grew our business. We knew that in order to keep our current customers happy and also grow, we had to control production. Now, if somebody needs something in a pinch, we’re better able to serve them.”
The dealership’s commercial clients “were excited” when they found out about the new facility. And the plant has helped Steve Shannon Tire pick up new accounts.
“Being able to service people better with a better offering and better turnaround time - and better pricing because we do it ourselves - have been big selling points,” says Jesse. “We’ve had quite a few customers who wanted to try us out right away. We’ve had new customers on-board from the very beginning.”
The addition of the plant “makes us a stronger company. Demand in our area is outpacing supply, so I think we picked a good time to get into the market.”
As new truck tire prices have increased, “we’ve seen customers who were once ‘new tires only’ start to run retreads. Our plan is to get the plant to max capacity and see where it goes from there.”
