Johnson Tire Pros Preps For Next Century

Providing good products at fair prices has kept Johnson Tire Pros in business for more than 100 years.

"My philosophy is, ‘Nobody remembers what they paid for tires,’” says Riley Johnson, co-owner of the single-location dealership in Springville, Utah.

"In the tire industry, you have to find that sweet spot where you’re providing a good product at a fair price that’s going to benefit the customer and not only your business.”

Riley’s great-grandfather, C. Edwin Johnson, founded the dealership in 1924. A veteran of World War I, “he rented a bench in an old Philips garage and begin his business. In the wintertime, a lot of people wouldn’t drive their cars, so he would go out, remove their batteries, take the batteries back to the garage and store them.”

In 1930, he moved into his own building and became a Goodyear dealer a year later. (Johnson Tire Pros is still a Goodyear dealer.)

"I’m a fourth-generation owner,” says Riley, who shares ownership of Johnson Tire Pros with his cousin, Jeff Jackson. "I worked here during high school and came on full-time in 1996,” the same year Jeff began working at the dealership on a full-time basis. “I’ve never worked anywhere else.”

Competitive market

Springville, a town of around 36,000 people, is near Provo, Utah, area, some 50 miles from Salt Lake City. It's a small but competitive market, according to Riley.

“I have a tire store right across the street from us. What’s interesting in our area right now is that a lot of these big investment firms are coming in and buying independent tire shops.”

The influx of private equity investors “is going to be an advantage for us. We’re family-owned. We’re in the community. We know people.”

Riley believes bigger isn’t always better when it comes to customer service.

"Expansion is something we’ve thought about, but we’ve never gotten serious about it. We have a 16,000-square-foot building on two acres. We pull people in from 30 miles around. We stay really busy. It’s never been our dream to have 10 stores.”

Ahead of the curve

Johnson Tire Pros’ ability to stay ahead of the curve has also contributed to the dealership’s success.

"When we built this facility in 1968, we built a recap shop” that was operational until around 1990. By then, it had become “more cost-effective to just buy a steel-belted radial” than purchase a passenger tire retread.

After the retread plant closed, “we had tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of tire molds that we had to scrap. 

"When I started in the business, we were full-on commercial. We had service trucks going out. But as the Springville area has grown and cars have become more specific – you have to be trained on certain vehicles – we’ve had to kind of tone our business down to just light truck and automotive.

"At one point, we used to wholesale tires out of here,” says Riley. “We got out of that business. We’ve had to change as the industry has changed over the years to keep going.”

Johnson Tire Pros’ customer base is also changing. Like other parts of Utah, the Springville area is seeing an influx of new residents. “We keep track of our new customers and where they’re coming from. We’re getting a lot of people from California and Denver.”

Many of these customers attended the dealership’s 100^th anniversary celebration in June 2024. During the event, “we set big tents up, we served 500 lunches and gave away sets of tires. We had a ton of supplier support. We had a great turn-out.”

Next generation

As Johnson Tire Pros prepares to enter its 102nd year in business, Riley and Jeff are cultivating the fifth generation of family ownership.

Riley's son, Clayton, age 24, is now working in the dealership. “Jeff has a couple of boys who are working while they go to school, so that next generation is starting and we’re very excited about that.”

In the meantime, Riley says he has no plans to retire. “I’ve always said, ‘I do the same thing every day, but every day is different.’ That’s what I like about it.”