Choosing Trelleborg has helped New England's leading off-the-road (OTR) tire dealer service to meet some tough customer challenges.
Sullivan Tire, a key New England tire business, operates 67 full service auto repair locations and 15 commercial truck tire centers throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine, servicing everything from a wheelbarrow to a loader. Present in the OTR market for many years, the company has built up an impressive customer base in some tough industries. To serve this market, Sullivan Tire is a dealer of Trelleborg's Brawler? tires, designed for use in extreme environments where machines, operators, and tires are pushed to the limits.
Waste and recycling companies, energy service providers, and scrap metal yards provide some of the toughest places a tire can work - machines in constant use and debris that can destroy a tire are just two of the challenges faced by Sullivan Tire in serving the OTR market.
Solution for Extreme Environments
"These customers require solutions for extreme environments," OTR operations manager David Bradley explained. "Trash and recycling facilities have machines running 24 hours a day, which means the tires never have a chance to cool down. A pneumatic tire's worst enemy, apart from punctures, is heat, so when you are dealing with these applications the best solution is a solid tire like the Brawler."
A key consideration for customers in scrap metal yards and recycling centers is cost reduction, and this is an area where Sullivan Tire's premium product approach adds real value.
"We have found that by reducing our customers' need for tire replacement, and thus machine downtime, they'll reduce their overall costs," Bradley continued. "That's something our customers understand and it's a concept they can invest in. For us, it's about being a good partner and taking the time to create lasting relationships that are built on trust and making the effort to ensure our customers' needs are met."
Proactive Approach Helps Customers
Sullivan Tire goes a step further to help its customers by putting into place a program that monitors tire condition. This allows them to quickly address customers' needs and help them avoid unnecessary downtime -- a proactive approach that customers appreciate and support.
Unnecessary downtime can interrupt a customer's whole operation, which is why Bradley recommends Brawler tires. These solid tires last up to three times longer than foam-filled pneumatics and require much less maintenance. If a user damages the sidewall of a foam-filled pneumatic tire it will become unusable, whereas Brawler tires just keep performing. This is something Sullivan Tire's customers have come to appreciate.
"At Sullivan Tire we differentiate ourselves by offering exceptional products and services. We chose the Brawler tire range because we knew we could stand behind them in terms of quality, service life, and durability. Trelleborg focuses on providing our customers the best total value of ownership, which is important to our reputation," says Bradley.
The Brawler tire line carries a reputation in several off-the-road industries such as construction and demolition, steel mills and foundries, heavy industrial, quarries and open pit mining. This has helped Sullivan Tires to make a name for itself in metal recycling, scrap yards, and waste centers; its growing footprint now extends beyond the New England area.
