When customers arrive at your tire dealership ready to buy replacement tires for a CUV or SUV, guiding them through the selection process might seem akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.
The latest category of tires that offers year-round consumer convenience also promises to extend and add to one of the most common struggles independent tire dealers face: stocking an even wider assortment of products.
Has the winter tire market been hurt by the growing all-weather segment and four-wheel-drive capabilities of crossover and sport utility vehicles? Not at all, say tire manufacturers, marketers and distributors.
Kenda USA introduced its latest light truck tire during Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week in Las Vegas in November. The Klever A/T2 KR628 features “Tier 1 quality at a top Tier 3 price,” said Jimmy Yang, president of American Kenda Rubber Ind. Co. Ltd. Yang is also chairman of Kenda’s parent company in Taiwan.
Modern Tire Dealer broke down the CUV and SUV tire segments by asking three all-important questions covering the forecast for the next five years, product mix, and where there’s the greatest growth. Nineteen tire makers weighed in.
Is the alphabet soup known appropriately as the LT tire market big enough for another letter? Until recently, there were only three types of LT-sized tires: H/T for highway-terrain, A/T for all-terrain and M/T for mud-terrain.
Dandelions. Orange oil. Soybean oil. Guayule. With each new experiment in the building process, it’s clear tire makers are in the hunt for sustainable substitutes for rubber compounding materials in the tire manufacturing process.
