The world of retreading looks a lot like the rest of the U.S. tire industry. Customer demand is strong, but the supply side of the equation has been problematic. One issue is tread rubber. As one retreader puts it, his business is focusing “on maintaining customers, while our rubber supplier hurts us with terrible fill rates.”
What’s more scarce at your tire dealership — tires or people? If you can’t pick one, you’re not alone. The nation’s largest commercial tire dealerships have been grappling with shortages on both fronts.
Michelin North America Inc.'s ONCall Emergency Roadside Service program has put more than two million trucks back on the road. A service technician from Massillon, Ohio-based Ziegler Tire & Supply Co.'s Cincinnati, Ohio, location completed the two millionth call.
For many retreaders, 2020 wasn’t a year to invest in major expansion. As Michael Berra Jr., president of Community Tire Co. in St. Louis, Mo., put it, “2020 was a survival year.”
The challenges of 2020 have been immense, and commercial tire dealers are doing their best to weather the storm. As Bob Berlin, president of Orange, Mass.-based Pete’s Tire Barns Inc., put it, “We’re pretty much flat for the year — and we’re happy.”
Is it possible to stay in the tire business for 100 years? Nearly two dozen independent tire dealerships have overcome the challenges of change to grow for a century or more.
It’s difficult to find a topic most people agree on, but among retreaders, concern over low-cost Chinese tires is one of them. “We are constantly looking for ways to cut cost out of the retread process so that we can be competitive,” says Chris Chase, president of Donald B. Rice Tire Co. Inc., which goes to market as Rice Retreading Inc.
