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NORTH AMERICA
Best-One Tire Argues Cost-Effectiveness of Quality Retreads
McCarthy Tire Buys Commercial Truck Tire Center
The Best-One Tire Group, with more than 250 partner outlets across 20 states, is currently the largest Bridgestone/Firestone independent tyre dealer in the United States. The Group, with 16 retread plants, is also a major Bandag dealer with a vision to be both the market leading and most trusted partner in the markets in which it operates.
Responsible for helping to oversee
as this will help us maintain and improve our ability to service the market once the market picks up again.”
The plants within the Best-One Tire Group sell primarily to dealer outlets within the Best-One Tire network, the development of which is a major factor in the growth of the retread business within the Group. “Growth is typically specific to individual
Pennsylvania based McCarthy Tire Service Co. has announced the purchase of Commercial Truck Tire Center in Syracuse, New York from the Cairns family. McCarthy Tire will continue to provide commercial tyre sales and service at the location in East Syracuse. The site will be a part of McCarthy Tire’s 24-hour commercial road side assistance programme available to fleets and independent operators in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Meanwhile, the company has also signed an Asset Purchase Agreement to purchase Ragan Tire Group, LLC of Concord, North Carolina, which provides off-the-road (OTR) tyres and tyre service to heavy construction, quarrying, and mining customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
“Ragan Tire Group is one of the premier off-the-road (OTR) service companies in the Southeast,” said John D. McCarthy, Jr., president of McCarthy Tire Service. “When we combine our companies, McCarthy Tire Service will be one of the largest
OTR service providers on the East Coast.”
Ragan Tire Group’s operations in North Carolina will be merged into four of McCarthy Tire’s eight locations in the state. The acquisition will add three new locations in South Carolina and one new location in Georgia to McCarthy Tire’s footprint, expanding it to a total of 49 service facilities in nine states.
All of the service and operational employees of Ragan Tire Group, including Ty Smith, will join the McCarthy Tire team. Smith will oversee the combined OTR operations in the southeast.
Also in the OTR sector, McCarthy Tire has announced that it will be closing its OTR tyre retreading plant on Somerset, Pa. and will source its OTR retreads from RDH Tire & Retread Co and BR Retreading Inc. In a prepared statement the company said it was planning to focus more heavily on the service side of its business, citing the impending acquisition of Ragan Tire’s distribution assets in the South-East USA.
Best One’s Plant Manager at Jeffersonville, Steve Mobley
BestDrive LLC Opens New Retread Outlet in Michigan
US retreader BestDrive LLC has celebrated the opening of a new location in Taylor, Michigan, just outside of Detroit. The parent company of BestDrive, Continental Tire the Americas, LLC, says it has invested more than $1.5 million in the new 60,000 square-foot-facility, which currently employs 14 people and plans to employ more than 40 people by 2020. Today the plant produces 60 retreads per day, scheduled to rise to more than 200 units per day within five years. “We’re opening BestDrive outlets in markets where key fleet customers have expressed a need for retread options,” said Clif Armstrong, managing director of BestDrive. “The
Detroit area is a market that has a significant impact on our business, and this newest BestDrive location in Taylor will provide us with a strong presence to meet the needs of customers in this region. We’re excited to be here and look forward to increasing production.”
The plant in Taylor is the third BestDrive outlet to open in the U.S. Now with locations in the Detroit, Memphis and Phoenix metropolitan areas, Continental says it is now in a position to provide broader support for servicing key fleet customers through BestDrive outlets and offer a wide range of services, including new tyres and ContiTread retreads.
Best-One’s retreading business is the company’s Indianapolis based Director of Retread Development, Rich Elliott, who explains the wide variety of challenges faced by the Group.
“Each of our retread plants is different,” he explains. “Although there is an overarching strategy for the development of Best-One’s retread business, each plant serves a different network of dealers and has to cope with differing market challenges.”
In order to develop the business, however, Elliott stresses that each plant is continually looking for the right investments to improve quality, ensure fleets have the highest possible uptime and make sure the plants run efficiently and profitably.
An example of this is the company’s facility at Jeffersonville, Indiana, which recently invested in a new Bandag 5400 building machine. The plant, which currently retreads around 180 tyres a day for delivery to dealers within a 130 mile radius of Louisville, expects to improve the quality of its production with the new investment.
“The long winter and lots of snow have slowed down our volumes during the first quarter,” explained plant manager Steve Mobley. “We are also coming under increased pressure from cheap imported new tyres, mainly from China. Investments such
markets,” explained Rich Elliott. “Our typical partner is an existing tyre dealer, so instead of going on our own into new markets, we usually partner with existing tyre dealers. An example of this is in the Cleveland area, where Great Lakes Best-One Tire now operates a Premier Bandag facility within its own area.
With regards to the current situation in the US market, Elliott agrees that one of the main issues currently in the industry is the influx of cheaper and low quality tyres. “The initial acquisition cost may be cheaper,” he says, “but fleets tend to have the same expectation for the casing as with higher quality new tyres. It is only later that the fleet discovers that the casings of the cheap new tyres are not always up to the job.
“As retreaders we have to approach this challenge as part of a cost per mile strategy,” he adds. “Tyres are a lifetime investment for a fleet, and the best approach is to have a vibrant and correct retread programme. We try to provide sufficient data and proof of the truth of this argument, and try to convince the customer that the cost and price are best evaluated over the longer term. We try to convince our customers that they’re buying a process. We believe we have the best people, the best process, the best rubber and the best equipment.”
Bauer Built Acquires Nebraska Dealer
12 Retreading Business
Bauer Built Inc., the ninth largest commercial tyre dealer in the U.S., has acquired Central Tire & Tread Inc. of Lexington, Nebraska. Bauer Built is based in Durand, Wisconsin
In addition to selling Michelin retreaded truck tyres produced by Bauer Built, the facility services retail, commercial and agricultural customers with their tyre and service needs. According to Tad Bauer, president of Bauer Built, this
acquisition is the result of continuing efforts by Bauer Built to expand its existing operations as part of its overall growth strategy.
Bauer also announced that the company will be investing in a premier 20,000-square-foot truck and retail facility in Lexington. Until it is completed this autumn, Bauer Built will operate out of the existing Central Tire & Tread facility.