Truett

1 hour ago, Andrew Cutler said:

May be different in your area, but this was our experience with UniFirst: abysmal

We have had nothing but a good experience since we got it up and going. Had some difficulties at first, Salesman messed up and then quit and had to wait for another sales man to be hired and trained, but other than that been doing well. We have had them for about 6 months now and they have been the same price every week. Since we are a Goodyear dealer I have a great price. Only drawback was we had to sign a 5 year contract to get the Goodyear account. the only increase they can make is a 5% per year. Drivers have been great to work with but once again it has only been 6 months.

Just wondering everyones opinion on yellow page advertising.

Worth it or just basic listing?

Richard

Have used the Delco brand batteries for the last 8 years. Very little problems with them and warranted well by my local vender Dust and Sons and Stonewheel. I have had nothing but problems with Interstate batteries and will NEVER install another one. I even used to stock them. Biggest pieces of crap sold and their warranty is junk. Have never been able to get them to warranty any of them even when they load test at 3 volts.

Really suggest you check out the Delco. Several different lines with different warranties so you can tailor the battery to the car and the customer. They do 18, 24, 36 month warranties that are full replacement not pro rated.

And then they want to sell them as used. We do not sell used tires. I quit 3 years ago. Great profit but the risk is too high.

I was just talking about their warranty time. The other is another matter entirely.

none of the Tire manufacturers will ever reach their warranty mileage 90% of the time. Come on a 100,000 mile warranty  on a tire? Who ya kidding.....

On 8/28/2017 at 2:11 PM, xrac said:

They should ban passenger tires more than 8 years old.  

I would say 6 years. Goodyear tire warranty only covers to 6 years.

25 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

What is a psc dealer?

A AC Delco program. Stands for Professional Service Center . Delco backs a 2 year, 24000 mile warranty. Also better pricing for me and rebates. Many other benefits too. Been one for 3 years now. Get credit for any ac Delco products from both aftermarket suppliers and GM dealers.

Find a new vendor. AAP and AutoZone are junk, for me last resort. Dorman quality dropped to junk after they moved production off shore.

We use mostly AC Delco and are a PSC Dealer. Have a 2 year part AND labor warranty from them.

As with my old computer programming days, “Junk in, Junk out”.

Just looking into a new tool. Have used a torch for 40 years, but have been hearing good things about the Mini Ductor series of tools. Anyone have experience with these and how much you paid and where.

I will still be locked to US Autoforce for another year with my G3x account so I have not gotten this letter from Goodyear as of yet. Also I believe this will be first run out in larger distribution areas such as Indianapolis,  Chicago, and such. Us small fry's in Hicksville won't see it for a while if ever.

From one of my favorite comics...Rodney Dangerfield

“My wife and I hav agreed to smoke only after sex. I have the same pack of cigarettes since 1975. What bothers me is my wife is up to 3 packs a day.”

Goodyear manages our websites....

www.urbanatruetires.com

and 

www.champaigntruetires.com

22 hours ago, Alex said:

Very interesting ruling today and it'll be interesting to see how it affects smaller online sellers. Larger ones like Amazon already comply in some states and will easily implement it, but what about their marketplace sellers that don't charge tax? ebay is another one....

 

They will have to start charging tax for any state that charges sales tax. Some states do not charge a sales tax.

10 hours ago, jhamrick said:

Based on the information I have been gathering it sounds like this might be more than Goodyear's greed. Some of the financial rumblings I have read and heard point to ATD being on the brink of bankruptcy and both Bridgestone and Michelin are also considering no longer supplying them with products. Of course Michelin and TBC have now merged to create a new wholesale supplier and Tirehub being a joint venture with Bridgestone makes it sound like there is some possible truth to that. I guess we will have to wait and see how ATD's future unfolds.

That may well be true, time will tell. Here is a link to the open letter from ATD’s president in Tire review stating they are financially sound.

http://www.tirereview.com/atd-issues-open-letter-to-stakeholders/

11 hours ago, jhamrick said:

I've got a question for you Truett....As a Goodyear dealer how do you anticipate Goodyear's distribution changes to affect your business? Is the withdrawal from ATD and creation of Tirehub seen as a positive move for Goodyear dealers? Are there any concerns that as Goodyear gains greater influence over distribution channels that they will increase purchase prices? 

I don’t see their current move with TireHub as causing any problems for me. As for distribution they only are looking at the large city’s like Chicago, New York , LA, Indy and such. They are using the old wharehousing systems they still have in place. Smaller markets will still be supplied by regional distributers.

ATD is one of the largest distributors in these large cities and therefore were in direct completion with TireHub.

This is just a continuation of what Goodyear started 3 years ago when they moved to sell Tires online, ship them to us, and have us install them. We only get aa minimal delivery fee (about $5) and have to install at the price Goodyear sets. We have to buy the tires, do the work and we get a credit back from Goodyear. Any problems the customer has they have to back to goodyear as they have charged their credit card. But the ustomer blames us for wrong size to type that they ordered. They have stolen all our profits on the sale and do not even pay the spiffs they do if we sell them.

This is just a continuation of their greed. Now they are cutting out their distributors so they can take their profit also. 

All of the upper management of goodyear are ex PepsiCo or Hewlett-Packard and are only concerned about getting their 10% per year increase for the stock holders. They even have the nerve to ask us to warranty Walmart tires as walmart will not warranty a tire unless customer buys roadhazard.

As for purchase price Goodyear sets that on thei web site with what they call MAP pricing. If we sell for higher than MAP, we look like crooks gouging the customer. So we have to sell for MAP which is about an 8% profit.

I have been in the tire business for almost 35 years and as I have told Goodyear several times we have been a Tire shop selling full service and wil some day become a full service shop selling a few tires.

10 minutes ago, 3PuttFever said:

Good stuff, Jhamrick. My tire business is about 10% of my service mix. If I get too much higher it cuts into my overall margin too much. When I have competitors guaranteeing lowest price, Fleet Farm, Sam's, Discount Tire, Walmart, and Big O within a few miles of my shop I just don't try to fight to the bottom of the price barrel. I explain to those that will listen that our service is superior, benefits and ease of doing business with us great, convenience stellar, but most calls and drop-ins are looking for price first. My good customers see the value and we convert some. 

Do you know if what Sam's and Discount Tire sell are the same tires as what we buy? Someone here alluded to the specs being less than but I can't imagine the Bridgestone making a diluted product to help the box store business model make more money. I assume they just buy so much they can negotiate great pricing AND they strategically take losses or less margin on tires to sell more profitable product. 

At one time they did. They had tires made to their specs by major tire company’s. Usually retired molds. Now they just sell the same tires. Walmart still has a few of their own such as the Goodyear Viva 3. As a goodyear dealer I can not even order that tire.

10 hours ago, Hands On said:

something I just thought of for the original poster though, those rusted lug nut are an opportunity to tell the customer you just noticed they would not be able to change a tire on the road if they needed to use their spare tire. Then you could charge labor and new lug nuts.

Check my earlier post......   ;>). 

We charge $24. I hand the lug nuts to the customer and ask if they want to try to get it off one night in the rain on the side of the road cause you know that is when it will happen.....Also have some half size sockets

Happens every day and no my supplier does not change their price. Wish they would. 

Last Black Friday walmart sold Goodyear Eagle LS’s for $15 les then I could buy them to the general public.

With online and big box stores ties sales for the dealers are in the tank.

Tire company’s don’t care as long as the numbers stay up. But they sure want us to do their warranty’s even walmart tires....

On 4/16/2018 at 7:58 AM, Andrew Ross said:

Also, if a customer is willing to pay cash or debit, would you consider a discount based on not having credit card fees (not suggesting no tax, just 2.5% or whatever off.)

In many states, for me Illinois, this is illegal. You can not give a discount for cash instead of credit.

On 4/8/2018 at 7:28 PM, Nataly Kartunova said:

This is why you got hurt." We recently went out of our way to accommodate a customers' vehicle repair request"

Learn from it and keep going.

Every time you bend over to accommodate a customer, you expose a certain part  of your "body " to them and it never fails for them to "stick it " to you.

 

A very smart man once told me.... “You can bend over so far you fall on your face”. With some people you just can not please them no matter what you do.

I was relaying what one of my old bosses did. I set a price and that is the best price we can do . Sorry but do not negotiate a price down. If I could I would have done a better price the first time. This is why I do not price match. If you can match a lower price or negotiate down you lied the first time about your best price. Just my feeling on the subject. We always put honesty first. Just my ethics. 

Had a boss one time that would always inflate the cost to an Asian customers 20% and when they asked for “discount” would give them 10%.. They loved him and sent him all their friends. Called it a handling fee......

Looking for anyone's experience with UniFirst. Have a really good quote from them but have had such bad experience with uniform company's that I am gun shy......