Now more than ever before dealerships need Express Maintenance. I truly believe most of us have accepted this but I also believe most of us do not fully understand or even agree with the concept. Being exposed to several dozen dealerships has only convinced me more that the Express Lane is COMPLETELY misunderstood.

Express Service exists to complete MPIs (Multi Point Inspections).

The low skill level service provided in the Express Lane is ideally suited to speed and consistency allowing the maximum number of vehicles through the lane which affords a very high level of inspections which translates to service sales.

The proficiency of the Express Technicians, regarding vehicle inspections, is of primary importance and must be monitored, corrected, and tested on a regular basis. The higher the priority the supervisors place on the MPI the higher the priority the staff will place on them also.

• No Appointment necessary which eliminates an unnecessary cap on volume. An “old fashioned” belief is that setting appointments allows for control of volume and flow through the shop. Which never considers no-shows putting us below capacity every day.
• Express Advisor IS the Dispatcher for the department. The Express Technicians do NOT come under the control, at ANY time, of any other manager.
• Express Technicians work in pairs, two per lift and splitting the responsibilities of Wet Tech/Dry Tech.
• Filter Cabinet is stocked daily and throughout the day by the Parts Department and access is limited to Express Technicians.
• The MPI MUST be completed before ANY other work is performed on a vehicle. This should a dismissible offense if ignored.
•  The Express Advisor needs access the completed inspection report and will monitor the ¼ Turn Policy, ensuring completion of the MPI within the 15-minute window.
• Express Advisor is charged with the responsibility of reviewing the MPI (Vehicle Inspection Report) with the waiting customer no later than 25 minutes after the Tech was assigned the vehicle. This effectively “stops the clock” with the customer and allows for fewer low CSI scores.
• A Dispatch Log is recommended. This will allow an “at-a-glance” view if/when the Express Advisor is otherwise occupied and one of the other Advisors is taking up the slack. The log will clearly show each team, the completed ROs will be crossed off leaving active customers to determine the wait time.
• An Express Team should only require 20 minutes to complete a full-service including tire rotation. In the interest of “walk before we run” let us allow 30 minutes per service. That allows for four full services per hour and 32 per day at a minimum. Some customers will forgo the rotation if it is not presented properly.
• 

The Express Lane offers several revenue streams and additional profit centers that are not presently being exploited. We must stop referring to Oil Changes and begin “reprogramming” ourselves and our customers to refer to Services. Maintenance due by mileage is Dealer Driven based on local driving and weather conditions.

Factory Recommended Mainteances are a simple guideline as to the bare minimum maintenance required for a vehicle. By no means is the Factory Maintenance Schedule applicable to any one market.

“My responsibility, as a factory authorized dealer, is to identify the various types of driving conditions, road surfaces, weather conditions and other variables that will require additional measures to keep the customer’s vehicle not only in top driving condition but also in top “value” condition. A well maintained, documented and cared for vehicle is always worth more than the alternative.”

This is potentially the single most lucrative department in the entire dealership when you factor in the volume, up-sell potential, repair referrals and repeat loyalty that all come from a well operated Express Maintenance operation.

Training is dead. No one has told training that it is dead but it is dead. Education is called for these days and Education is not simply a semantical replacemet for training but an entirely different field of study and discipline. By definition:

Training is a noun

1. The action of teaching a person or animal a particular skill or type of behavior.

Education is a noun

     The process of imparting general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and             judgment, and generally of preparing others intellectually for a position or profession. 

There is a difference and, when examined carefully, it is the difference between success and failure in your efforts as a leader. Communication is your goal as a leader whether you recognize that fact or not. It seems to be left out of roughly half of the books, tapes, DVD's et al written about leadership.

Training has become ubiquitous since the 1980s because we, as an industry, stopped training Sales Managers entirely. We began "promoting from within" which was really an excuse to trim the payroll. Prospecting for, interviewing, recruiting and hiring a professional manager is very expensive (up front and on paper) and due to gross compression, competative pressures, attrition and scores of other excuses we settled for less.

Let us all face the fact that we are surrounded by people from different generations that have been taught to gather information differntly than most of us were. These "young" people expect more, demand more and deliver more if WE do more. Does it make sense to you, the leader, to learn how your people learn? Is it easier to create a "flow" that they are comfortable with and get them into the "flow" than it is to force them into yur "flow"?

In simple terms we need to learn to teach. Personally I spent hours on line and in conversations with people I know in education and it was eye opening to me as to how little I understand about education, communication and interaction with these various generations. It taught me I had a lot to learn, a lot to prepare and even more to execute in my quest to STOP training and START educating.

How do you, as a leader, educate your Express Lane Service Advisor? Can it be an "inside job"? Can it be accomplished in a timely and effective manner? Will it pay dividends? The answer to all of those questions is a big, fat, beautiful YES! 

A fair question might be; "Why the Express Advisor?" Simply put that position sees more paying customers, day in and day out, than any other person in the dealership. If you can master that position, from an education standpoint, you can tackle every other education opportunity in the dealership.

Memorization, recitation and rote. That is how Boomers and Gen Xers were educated in school. Flash cards, "fonix" (remember that?) etc. were all tools used to give the foundation that we would carry out into the world and eventually match it up with a practical application in our daily lives.

Presentation (highly visual and interactive), discussion and reason is how the "new" generations are taught to gather and process information. They use the internet, they search out "why" more than "how" and they were taught to look at a process in its entirety first then they will exammine their part of the whole.

Having them take tests, write notes, sit through slide presentations from last-century training companies is how, why and when they disengage. Shake up the process, do a little research, set up a world class presentation on the entire process from "soup to nuts" as it were, in relation to the Express Lane and you will see an entirely different level of engagement from that generation that you say; "You just cant get good people anymore."

 Are you in the tire business? If you are an OEM Dealership then the answer is NO. (As always there are a few anecdotal exceptions to that rule) I will do my best to accomplish the following: 1. Define being IN the tire business. 2. The number one reason to be IN the tire business. 3. How traditional problem solving techniques will not get us IN the tire business. Of course, no blog would be complete without a “call to action” but keep in mind I am not selling ANYTHING so there is nothing for me to gain or anything for you to risk. 
 
What being IN the tire business means? 
 
Let us examine what we know about the business which will be defined by passenger and light duty tire sales excluding OEM Factory Purchases. We will also examine OEM Dealership sales, Price Club Sales and the Secondary Market sales, which, by the way, answers for virtually every tire sold in the USA. 
 
 232 Million Replacement tires sold in the US in 2019.  30 Million Light Duty Tires were also sold in the same year. (MTD)  262 Million Sold total in 2019. (MTD)  16,708 OEM Dealerships in the US (NADA 2018)  5,500 Wholesale Clubs in the US 4,400 sell tires. (First Research Inc)  OEM Dealerships account for roughly 8% of all tire sales or 20.96 million tires.  Wholesale Clubs account for roughly 9.5% of all tires sold in the US for a total of 24.89 million. 
 
              20.96 Million Tires Sold     16,708 OEM Dealers        = 1,254 tires per year/OEM 
 
             24.89 Million Tires Sold         4,400 Price Clubs              = 5,656 tires sold per year/Club  
 
We could make the argument that we, the OEM Dealer, should be selling at least the same amount as the Wholesale Clubs per location for several reasons: OEM has more capacity, more technicians and more customers. 
 
That alone, moving the bar to catch up with the Wholesale Clubs, would bring the OEM Dealers market share from 8% up to 36% which is a worthy and attainable goal, on paper anyway. 
 
In 2017, for instance, OEM Dealers wrote 259 million repair orders. We are told, by NHSTA, that 13% of ALL vehicles on the road need at least one tire so, the math: 
 
259 Million R/Os written X 13% needing a tire = 33,670,000 Tire Sale Potential 
 
That  would be an increase from 8% Market Share to 13%! It is a step in the right direction. As you can see we have the potential because that would mean only selling one tire to 13% of the vehicles we see. 
 
So, in conclusion of my first goal of defining being in the tire business we can say that at least 13% of my repair orders should involve at least one tire sale. Very simply take ALL R/Os and do the math; you are either in or out. 
 
The Number One Reason To Be In The Tire Business? 
 
Money is the simple answer. Efficiency offers a little deeper answer but LOYALTY will be the most comprehensive opportunity to fully explain why. 
 
The only logical way to measure loyalty, if a Dealership originated the sale, is how long the customer remains loyal in service for as long as they own the vehicle. There is no other logical measure. Anything less than that is a “specious” measure designed to control a behavior of the OEM Dealers. 
 
The methodology of measuring Loyalty is now a moving target in that OEMs, parasite services like JD Powers and NADA, realize that Dealers are simply not effective at maintaining any level of loyalty with the majority of their customers after, even before in many cases, the Factory Backed Warranty expires. 
 
Once that customer seeks out the Secondary Market for service, maintenance and repairs the OEM Dealer has lost an enormous investment and must start the process of earning a new customer from the beginning. Every three years, or so, the process repeats itself. 
 
We are told the Secondary Market DOUBLES in size every five years with OUR customers! Who, what, when, where and why are all good, if not vital, questions that must be answered to ensure our survival and growth. 
 
Who and What is the Secondary Market? ANYONE that repairs, maintains and services automobiles. That was simple. Your OEM Dealership is surrounded, literally, with hundreds of licensed repair facilities within a 10 mile radius and they take in 1,000% more revenue than you do. 
 
When and Where is actually a matter of advertising and conditioning. The Secondary Market does not have the burden of an OEM partner. They typically do not sell cars and have zero competitive restrictions which allows them to savagely and relentlessly attack your client base. From the very moment your customer takes delivery of their vehicle (new or used) they only need to turn on the radio to be inundated with competitors messages. 
 
The Secondary Market learned long ago, as far back as 1929, when Firestone opened their first tire dealership, to advertise, advertise and then advertise to grow their business. OEM Dealers learned the same thing….with cars but fail miserably with advertising and promoting service. 
 
The radio is the gateway to ALL of your customers and the Secondary Market understands this all too well. 
 
The Why is easy; MONEY! It is Your MONEY unfortunately. 
 
The most expensive item most every customer will buy for their automobile is not an engine, not a transmission, not a transfer case but tires. That is the single largest purchase the customer will most likely, several times in most cases, buy before they trade their vehicle in. 
 
The need for tires, most frequently, arises shortly after the warranty expires and a full 70% of those customers are already gone from your service lane and in a lane in the Secondary Market buying tires, brakes, fluids, etc. all the items that you never, most likely, spoke to the customer about while you serviced their vehicles. 
 
In conclusion if you control the tires you control the customer and, by default, you control the loyalty. 
 
How Traditional Problem Solving Techniques Will Not Work. 
 
There are as many “old sayings” and “axioms” about selling tires as there are tires. Phrases like “if you can’t smell ’em you can’t sell ’em.” Or “You can’t sell what they can’t see.” Or even this one, “POS spells success.” Are three that come to mind. 
 
So, like many dealerships, you call your local distributor, Dealer Tire, Tire Rack or ATD and get a list of the “top sellers” in your market and you put in an order in.  
 
You set up some displays, banners and decorate the lane/lounge with all manner of tire POS and you sit back and wait and wait and wait. 
 
Your Parts Manager is on a 45 year old pay plan, never participates in specials by discounting parts and fights your Advisors EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY NEED TIRE INFORMATION!  
 
Your “budget” tire which cost $85.00 from the distributor now retails for $114.99 and your staff cannot seem to compete, on any level, for tire sales. 
 
But, you distributor has a price match guarantee that reads like a commercial property lease, requires an attorney to submit the form and if a price match is to be made you will get reimbursed 90 days AFTER you swallow the difference.  
 
The Parts Manager screams and cries to the GM who, admittedly, does not want to hear it, so he makes the difference come out of labor to placate the perpetually angry Parts Manager. 
 
The next step is spiffs. You decide that a bonus will be paid on additional tire sales and you put forth great effort only to barely move the needle, or in some cases, go backwards! 
 
All in all you spent a lot of money on inventory even though you had the “right” tires in stock. You put in great effort to let customers know you are “in the tire business” and you worked diligently to provide extra added incentives for your people to “sell” more tires only to have had it fail. 
 
The reason traditional methods will not work is three-fold: 
 
1) Tell it DON’T sell it! 2) Wrong incentives to the wrong people. 3) You do not understand the “profit center”. 
 
There is a process, a solution, if you will, that can be followed and with virtually no investment you can be fully immersed AND successful in the tire business which will get you all of the benefits that, to date, have eluded your Service Department. 
 
If you would like to explore a better option, a sure fire method of success and a way to capture the loyalty and efficiencies and profits that come from a successful tire business in your Service Department email me at cmurray@davidlewis.com for a PDF outline of instructions.  
 
No games, no fees, no harassing phone calls and no soliciting will result from this. What have you got to lose? 
 Are you in the tire business? If you are an OEM Dealership then the answer is NO. (As always there are a few anecdotal exceptions to that rule) I will do my best to accomplish the following: 1. Define being IN the tire business. 2. The number one reason to be IN the tire business. 3. How traditional problem solving techniques will not get us IN the tire business. Of course, no blog would be complete without a “call to action” but keep in mind I am not selling ANYTHING so there is nothing for me to gain or anything for you to risk. 
 
What being IN the tire business means? 
 
Let us examine what we know about the business which will be defined by passenger and light duty tire sales excluding OEM Factory Purchases. We will also examine OEM Dealership sales, Price Club Sales and the Secondary Market sales, which, by the way, answers for virtually every tire sold in the USA. 
 
 232 Million Replacement tires sold in the US in 2019.  30 Million Light Duty Tires were also sold in the same year. (MTD)  262 Million Sold total in 2019. (MTD)  16,708 OEM Dealerships in the US (NADA 2018)  5,500 Wholesale Clubs in the US 4,400 sell tires. (First Research Inc)  OEM Dealerships account for roughly 8% of all tire sales or 20.96 million tires.  Wholesale Clubs account for roughly 9.5% of all tires sold in the US for a total of 24.89 million. 
 
              20.96 Million Tires Sold               16,708 OEM Dealers        = 1,254 tires per year/OEM Dealership 
 
             24.89 Million Tires Sold               4,400 Price Clubs              = 5,656 tires sold per year/Wholesale Club  
 
We could make the argument that we, the OEM Dealer, should be selling at least the same amount as the Wholesale Clubs per location for several reasons: OEM has more capacity, more technicians and more customers. 
 
That alone, moving the bar to catch up with the Wholesale Clubs, would bring the OEM Dealers market share from 8% up to 36% which is a worthy and attainable goal, on paper anyway. 
 
In 2017, for instance, OEM Dealers wrote 259 million repair orders. We are told, by NHSTA, that 13% of ALL vehicles on the road need at least one tire so, the math: 
 
259 Million R/Os written X 13% needing a tire = 33,670,000 Tire Sale Potential 
 
That  would be an increase from 8% Market Share to 13%! It is a step in the right direction. As you can see we have the potential because that would mean only selling one tire to 13% of the vehicles we see. 
 
So, in conclusion of my first goal of defining being in the tire business we can say that at least 13% of my repair orders should involve at least one tire sale. Very simply take ALL R/Os and do the math; you are either in or out. 
 
The Number One Reason To Be In The Tire Business? 
 
Money is the simple answer. Efficiency offers a little deeper answer but LOYALTY will be the most comprehensive opportunity to fully explain why. 
 
The only logical way to measure loyalty, if a Dealership originated the sale, is how long the customer remains loyal in service for as long as they own the vehicle. There is no other logical measure. Anything less than that is a “specious” measure designed to control a behavior of the OEM Dealers. 
 
The methodology of measuring Loyalty is now a moving target in that OEMs, parasite services like JD Powers and NADA, realize that Dealers are simply not effective at maintaining any level of loyalty with the majority of their customers after, even before in many cases, the Factory Backed Warranty expires. 
 
Once that customer seeks out the Secondary Market for service, maintenance and repairs the OEM Dealer has lost an enormous investment and must start the process of earning a new customer from the beginning. Every three years, or so, the process repeats itself. 
 
We are told the Secondary Market DOUBLES in size every five years with OUR customers! Who, what, when, where and why are all good, if not vital, questions that must be answered to ensure our survival and growth. 
 
Who and What is the Secondary Market? ANYONE that repairs, maintains and services automobiles. That was simple. Your OEM Dealership is surrounded, literally, with hundreds of licensed repair facilities within a 10 mile radius and they take in 1,000% more revenue than you do. 
 
When and Where is actually a matter of advertising and conditioning. The Secondary Market does not have the burden of an OEM partner. They typically do not sell cars and have zero competitive restrictions which allows them to savagely and relentlessly attack your client base. From the very moment your customer takes delivery of their vehicle (new or used) they only need to turn on the radio to be inundated with competitors messages. 
 
The Secondary Market learned long ago, as far back as 1929, when Firestone opened their first tire dealership, to advertise, advertise and then advertise to grow their business. OEM Dealers learned the same thing….with cars but fail miserably with advertising and promoting service. 
 
The radio is the gateway to ALL of your customers and the Secondary Market understands this all too well. 
 
The Why is easy; MONEY! It is Your MONEY unfortunately. 
 
The most expensive item most every customer will buy for their automobile is not an engine, not a transmission, not a transfer case but tires. That is the single largest purchase the customer will most likely, several times in most cases, buy before they trade their vehicle in. 
 
The need for tires, most frequently, arises shortly after the warranty expires and a full 70% of those customers are already gone from your service lane and in a lane in the Secondary Market buying tires, brakes, fluids, etc. all the items that you never, most likely, spoke to the customer about while you serviced their vehicles. 
 
In conclusion if you control the tires you control the customer and, by default, you control the loyalty. 
 
How Traditional Problem Solving Techniques Will Not Work. 
 
There are as many “old sayings” and “axioms” about selling tires as there are tires. Phrases like “if you can’t smell ’em you can’t sell ’em.” Or “You can’t sell what they can’t see.” Or even this one, “POS spells success.” Are three that come to mind. 
 
So, like many dealerships, you call your local distributor, Dealer Tire, Tire Rack or ATD and get a list of the “top sellers” in your market and you put in an order in.  
 
You set up some displays, banners and decorate the lane/lounge with all manner of tire POS and you sit back and wait and wait and wait. 
 
Your Parts Manager is on a 45 year old pay plan, never participates in specials by discounting parts and fights your Advisors EVRY SINGLE TIME THEY NEED TIRE INFORMATION!  
 
Your “budget” tire which cost $85.00 from the distributor now retails for $114.99 and your staff cannot seem to compete, on any level, for tire sales. 
 
But, you distributor has a price match guarantee that reads like a commercial property lease, requires an attorney to submit the form and if a price match is to be made you will get reimbursed 90 days AFTER you swallow the difference.  
 
The Parts Manager screams and cries to the GM who, admittedly, does not want to hear it, so he makes the difference come out of labor to placate the perpetually angry Parts Manager. 
 
The next step is spiffs. You decide that a bonus will be paid on additional tire sales and you put forth great effort only to barely move the needle, or in some cases, go backwards! 
 
All in all you spent a lot of money on inventory even though you had the “right” tires in stock. You put in great effort to let customers know you are “in the tire business” and you worked diligently to provide extra added incentives for your people to “sell” more tires only to have had it fail. 
 
The reason traditional methods will not work is three-fold: 
 
1) Tell it DON’T sell it! 2) Wrong incentives to the wrong people. 3) You do not understand the “profit center”. 
 
There is a process, a solution, if you will, that can be followed and with virtually no investment you can be fully immersed AND successful in the tire business which will get you all of the benefits that, to date, have eluded your Service Department. 
 
If you would like to explore a better option, a sure fire method of success and a way to capture the loyalty and efficiencies and profits that come from a successful tire business in your Service Department email me at cmurray@davidlewis.com for a PDF outline of instructions.  
 
No games, no fees, no harassing phone calls and no soliciting will result from this. What have you got to lose? 

How do you think the most successful military in the history of the world trains its troops? Do they bring in outsiders and civilians to do it? Do you think they send the troops off-site for a few hours and consider them trained? Do you think that everyone is considered trained for life because they "shadowed" or "mentored" with one of their veterans? 

What good would all of that training be if the sergeants did not witness any of it? How would the sergeants know what to expect from his trainee if he was "too busy" to attend the training? Could you imagine if we could train everyone in the dealership by spending no time and no money?

As a Dealer Principal or a General Manager you spend an enormous amount of your time and efforts, necessarily so, keeping expenses in line with gross profit and industry guidelines. No one can argue the importance and necessity of those endeavors. However, can you state, unequivocally, that you are fairly and advantageously distributing the money you do spend?

In recent years the gurus, consultants and twenty-groups have been harping, non stop, about ROI and all the evils of not obeying this all important calculation. Interestingly, however, that ROI calculation seems to never be applied to advertising, unless of course, the Dealer/GM are looking for an excuse not to make an investment in some vendor's advertising or marketing campaign.

In reality advertising is the one unaccountable expense common to every dealership that, if subjected to the car gods precious ROI calculation, would be eliminated. There are so many simple reasons why advertising is unaccountable to sound business practices:

1) No true baseline exists to measure each ad dollar against

2) Dealerships do NOT accurately count traffic

3) Dealerships inaccurately credit every sale to some form of advertising

4) Dealerships do not accurately source floor, internet and phone traffic

What intrigues me is the absolute refusal by so many dealerships to spend one dime, to invest any time and to make an honest effort to train their MANAGERS! 

If you train the salespeople they are trained for a few hours or days before they revert, completely, back to their ways before the training took place. If you train the managers you have the same results however when you add guidelines and true accountability to the mix you now have the beginnings of a truly successful training regimen.

Imagine if you diverted 15 - 20% of the unaccountable advertising budget and invested it in training your managers on a process or a set of principles that you want, a process that you support and want implemented in your dealership? Imagine adding some simple accountability to the plan? What might the results be? Most likely far and away better than any other investment you can make this year!

I have witnessed, first hand, a manager being held accountable to a process and it was startlingly effective. The General Manager had a policy regarding Desking procedures and when it was clearly circumvented by a Desk Manager the GM called him into his office, handed him a notepad and a pen and asked the Desk Manager to put in writing his reasons for violating company policy then he instructed him to sign and date the "confession". When that was complete he simply stated that this is simply a record of your behavior.

I was impressed with how effective this was in that the manager was visibly shaken yet not threatened in any way. He shared with me that he realized that by putting his infraction in writing really opened his eyes to the blatant disobedience that he displayed and that he will, in the future, make sure it did not happen again.

You have an opportunity to do this in your dealership or keep doing what you are doing and keep getting what you are getting.
 

I spent several days with a Service Manager that is convinced there are no solutions to her problems. She is bright, capable, competent and creative but has tunnel vision when it comes to solving her problems.

Like a great many Service Managers she employs a Master Technician that has been at the dealership for more years than she has been alive. He controls dispatch, schedule volume and a great many other day to day activities in the service department. 

So what's the problem? The department is functioning well below expectations. After analyzing the situation I made several recommendations regarding the schedule, MPI's, Menu Presentations, Alignment Checks, etc... to begin increasing revenue she stopped me at every suggestion by saying the following:

"That makes a lot of sense but it will not work here because...."

Essentially every block to progress came back to the same technician, the Shop Foreman! That shop foreman blocks the following:

1) MPI takes too much time

2) Alignment Check machine might not be accurate

3) Scheduling appointments after 2:00 PM prevents completing every job

4) Up-selling fluids and maintenance is the technicians prerogative

To only mention a few. As we discussed each item I made a point of mentioning that the same name comes up every time and she countered with:

"Do you expect me to just fire him?"

My answer, as it always is regarding the human resource, is that unless they have done something immoral or illegal dismissal is never an option.

The Service Manager is afraid that no technician can be replaced because of the obvious shortage. She fears changing the pay plan or even enforcing some basic discipline in the shop for fear of loss. I understand her fear, almost EVERY Service Department suffers from the same paralysis but most will not admit it.

The solution is simple but that is not the point of this blog, the point is:

If you think you can or you cannot you are right! (Henry Ford)

She was willing to accept all of the outrageous demands and suffer the ridiculous opinions of a Shop Foreman that is at the end of a mediocre career at best. His narrow mindedness about all things is controlling her income, the departments success and the very future of the dealership. 

Are you suffering from the same paralysis? Are you being "bullied" into accepting poor business practices for fear of losing a technician or a Shop Foreman? If you are then they are in complete control of your future and you are making it happen. The problem is NOT the Shop Foreman, he is a symptom of the real problem: The Service Manager is the problem here.

Two of our biggest assets in our dealerships are the Factory Warranty and Factory Trained Technicians. Without that not much separates us from the Secondary Repair & Maintenance facilities. However we face the following:

Customers surveyed feel we are too expensive, do not fix it right the first time, are rude and we do not care about their problems!

We can change that perception with our customers from this moment forward!

So what does this have to do with tires? From the moment your customer purchased their vehicle and every single day since they have been bombarded with advertisements for tires from the National companies Goodyear, Firestone, NTB, etc… So, when there is the perceived need for tires are they thinking of you? NO!

The typical warranty on a new vehicle is 3 years/36,000 miles and statistics show that when the Factory Warranty runs out so then do 70% of our service customers! What an enormous loss! Where do they go? Why?

We know where they go! 70% of the time it is to a Secondary Repair/Maintenance facility to get a quote on tires.

At the same time that the Warranty expires so does the useful life of most original equipment tires! Why is this important? According to NADA over 80% of customers service their vehicle where they buy tires!

Upon further examination new car dealers only dealerships accounted for only 8 percent of the $29.2 billion U.S. market in replacement tires for cars and light trucks according to the trade publication Modern Tire Dealer. Although that number is up from a dismal past it is still worth examining the negative affect this has on our overall industry.

Customers pull out of the “Dealership Service Experience” as soon as the warranty or free maintenance has expired. When they enter the Secondary Service universe they are met by trained service professionals that have a process that is executed at a significantly higher level than at the average dealership. They get the tires, the LOF’s, the filters, brakes and everything over 70% of the time!

We are left with discounted LOF’s (designed to compete with the Jiffy Lubes of the world) and Factory Recalls that barely break even with and the occasional repair. It is very, very difficult indeed to grow our service business if the Sales Department is having an “off year” so what can we do?

Obviously sell tires but how? How do we do it bigger and better than ever before? That what this is all about!

When does the tire sale begin? Great question. What happens currently is IF a Technician determines the vehicle needs tires we present that need to the customer. Typically to be turned down cold. Why?

Let’s look at it from the customers point of view:

“I have been coming to this dealership for several years because I bought the car here and it is under warranty. Out of nowhere they spring $800 worth of tires on me! Really? All of a sudden I need tires? No thank you!”

The sale of tires, brakes, maintenance, et al begins on the first service visit! Even if the vehicle has only a few thousand, or even hundreds, of miles on it. We begin the “sale” by presenting the facts. Remember the following: Nothing is bad until it is compared to something else!

If a customer has been into our dealership, say, three times per year over the three years of the warranty period and we presented them with an MPI they would have had nine reports on their overall vehicle condition including tires and breaks.

Presenting the first MPI is simple:

(During the Active Delivery or in the Customer Lounge for Waiters)

“Ms. Customer I wanted to share a report with you, the systems inspection I told you about out at your car this morning. We call it and MPI or Multi Point Inspection and here is how it works: we measure and inspect all of the vital safety and operating systems in your vehicle. This, of course, is done by a Factory Certified Technician.

They assign a grade to each item they inspect such as Green means the system is operating perfectly and requires no attention. While a system or item in Yellow requires no immediate attention but will soon and shows us the rate of deterioration of that system or component. The final grade is red which means there is a safety issue and/or component failure and needs immediate attention.

As you can see your car is all Green and I am happy to report in excellent condition! We will complete one of these complimentary inspections for you every time you come in.”

That is where it all begins! As the service visits progress we can show, with no uncertainties, the deterioration of the tires, brakes, battery, etc…the customer will appreciate and actually look forward to these reports.

When the time comes, say for these purposes, on the ninth visit, reviewing the MPI and sale of the tires becomes a simple academic exercise. You have earned the right!

Ms. Customer on your last visit we discussed the tires being in the last stage of operational safety and your Technician advised me that the tires are no longer safe. I presented you with three options on your last visit good, better and best I have copies here, which set would you like me to review with you?”

It truly is as simple as that! On their eighth visit you shared the tread depth measurements at, say, 4/32nd and presented them with some choices to consider over the next several weeks or months, depending on their driving habits. Now upon their return visit it is time close the tire sale that you opened back when you first met them.

Recommend tires at 4/32nd and recommend immediate replacement at 3/32nd as a rule. On vehicles with longer maintenance intervals such as 7,500 or 10,000 miles you need to be more proactive. A rule of thumb is 3550 to 5,000 per 32nd on OEM tires.

A tire, on average, starts out life at 10/32nd and has a safe, useable tread life of 7/32nd so that equates to roughly 35,000 miles. Your customer should be made aware of this as the tires begin to enter the “Yellow” zone.

The sale does not stop at tires! Four wheel alignment and balance are also necessary to protect the investment and are pure labor operations for your shop and that is why we are all here isn’t it?

Let’s begin to think about what a tire actually does. According to the Michelin Tire Certification test it performs six functions:

1. Support

 A tire carries more than 50 times its own weight and is subject to more than 20 million deformations over its lifetime. It must also withstand considerable load transfers during both acceleration and braking.

2. Driving

 A tire must retain its performances on all sorts of road surfaces and at temperatures that can vary from -30 degrees F up to 120 degrees F For reasons of efficiency and environmental protection, it must also offer low rolling resistance.

3. Steering

 The tire must provide stability at all times on the vehicle's trajectory. This means that it must withstand the transversal forces without drift. Among other things, this property depends on the correct choice of pressure between the front and rear axles.

4. Handling

 Straight line, corner, acceleration, braking… The tire transmits the energy from the engine to the ground at all times. It must respond to the many demands of the drive, the road and the environment. It provides longitudinal and transversal efforts that can reach its own load on a surface hardly bigger than a hand.

5. Suspension

 The tire absorbs obstacles and dampens irregularities in the road, thus ensuring the comfort of drivers and their passengers and the longevity of the vehicle. Its main attribute is its flexibility, especially in the vertical direction.

6. Duration

 The lifespan of a tire depends on the conditions of use (load, speed, condition of the road surface, condition of the vehicle, driving style, etc.) and on the quality of the contact with the ground. Pressure therefore plays a major role in this field. It affects

A tire will NOT perform those six functions below 3/32nd!

Show & Tell:

We all loved it in kindergarten and we will love it even more now.

When a customer is in need of tires it is not always because of miles. Poorly maintained air pressures, cars out of alignment, excessive city driving and high speed driving are just a handful of reasons a tire needs to be replaced.

The Technician should always inform you and demonstrate what caused the wear out of the tire or tires in question. There are so many stories that can be read on tire tread:

1) No Tread in the center of the tire indicates an over inflation condition.

2) No tread on the edges is a sign of under inflation

3) Scalloping or feathering is a toe-in or camber issue

4) Cracking in between the treads is dry rot

5) Damaged or missing rubber requires immediate replacement

6) Bulging sidewall is also a critical safety issue.

Those are just a few of the conditions that require show & tell with the customer to close on the sale of the tires which is also the perfect time to present the absolute need of an alignment and balance on the new tires to protect the investment.

Once tires become a priority for you they will become a fast seller at your store and you will begin building the loyal base of customers that has eluded our business since the start!

Tread Depth Analyzers:

Some dealerships have invested in machines that will read and report the tread depth when your customer drives through the door. This is fantastic technology and is getting more affordable and accurate as each year rolls by.

Timing, they say, is everything. Just because you have instantaneous information does not mean you approach the customer with it. You have:

1. A professional Meet & Greet
2. Obtain information as it pertains to the customer
3. A professional Walk Around
4. Ascertain the purpose of the visit (primary complaint)
5. Preferred follow up method (drop off)

Putting tire information under the customer’s nose first thing might be the end of ANY potential sale because it is very pushy and that is a major reason consumers do not like car dealership service departments.

The same idea holds true for the alignment machines! Timing! Present what is required to solve the initial complaint first then discuss the safety items and finally the maintenance and convenience items.

Dealer Tire, Tire Rack, Ford, Chevrolet, etc. all offer some type of tire program. Several things stand in the way of tire sales beyond our control but can and should be corrected by the management team.

Inventory:

The Parts Department is hesitant to stock tires because of the enormous cost and potential for aging, handling, storage and generally not understanding the entire process.

A dealership that is seriously pursuing the tire business must make this a business inside of a business. First and foremost the parts department must be held harmless from the tire inventory cost and from the mark-up structure. The department can be paid a simple fee for handling the tires and nothing more. The archaic pay plans in most parts departments calling for 40% mark-ups and next day inventories will NOT allow a dealership to compete.

Where you source tires is important beyond price because information is as important a competitive tool as price can be. The Tire Supplier can provide you with the most efficient inventory investment possible and a great many will work on a consignment basis. This allows maximum efficiency and same day sale-installation flexibility which can prove critical to your dealership’s success.

 There is a lot of planning and execution that needs to go into building a tire business but the results just may well be the difference in success and failure in the very near future for a great many service departments.