When brothers Victor Bustamante and Nate Bustamante Jr. opened the doors of Andrews Tire Service Inc. in April 2000, they were just 25 and 19 years old, respectively. Victor, the older of the two, had spent the previous eight years selling and servicing tires at another local shop when he and Nate decided to give their own business a try.
But it wasn’t easy.
“We went to the bank and asked for a loan and they denied us because we were too young,” says Nate.
They didn’t give up. Instead, “we brought in the big guns,” Nate says now with a laugh. With their dad’s credit backing, the bank took another look.
Ultimately, the two brothers were awarded a $25,000 start-up loan from the Small Business Administration.
That money helped them rent a small shop in Andrews, Texas, and the brothers got to work. Victor’s customers who had encouraged him to go out on his own did as they had promised and started ordering tires from the brothers and calling them for tire service.
But after a couple of months, the Bustamantes only had enough money in the bank for two more paychecks. “After that, if we didn’t get any more money that people owed us, we were going to have to shut down and go work somewhere else,” says Nate
That Friday, as if right on cue, the first customer payments arrived.
Since then, Andrews Tire has grown from that scrappy, two-person business into a company with customers scattered across the plains of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. The busy dealership’s service territory stretches 100 miles beyond its hometown of Andrews.
The business is made up of a team of 12 employees. The Bustamantes operate two service trucks and regularly service a list of 100-plus commercial customers. And they’re expanding their retail business.
But commercial tires have been an important part of Andrews Tire since day one and the Bustamante brothers insist that will continue.
Outlasting the competition
A year after Andrews Tire opened its doors, the company welcomed its third employee — Nate Bustamante Sr. The “big gun” who helped his sons get started left his job in the oilfields of west Texas to work full-time in their dealership. (He’s since retired, but remains an equal owner.)
Those early years were rough, but over time the brothers established Andrews Tire as a reliable, fast and fair business.
“In the beginning, it was just me and my brother and we did everything,” says Nate. “We were answering phones, going out on service calls, changing oil and changing tires.”
Victor remembers when another longtime tire dealer cautioned him that Andrews Tire likely wouldn’t survive. There were four other tire dealerships in Andrews at that time and the other dealer was blunt: “There’s not enough work out here.”
But the Bustamante brothers persisted. And as it turned out, the tire dealer who issued the warning to them eventually closed his doors. Within 10 years, all four local competitors went out of business.
Andrews Tire eventually bought the shop it initially leased, but by 2018 the business had outgrown it. That year the company moved to an 8,000 square-foot space on the outskirts of Andrews, a city of about 18,000 people and the lone incorporated city in Andrews County.
Located on a truck route, the new five-bay service center is easier for trucks to maneuver in and out of as they crisscross the plains south of the Texas Panhandle.
Oil leads the way
Andrews is in rural west Texas and sits atop the Permian Basin, the epicenter of Texas’ crude oil production.
“We live and die by the oilfields,” says Nate.
Andrews County produced more than 35 million barrels of crude oil in 2022, making it the state’s eighth-largest county for oil production. (As a point of reference, that means Andrews County produced more oil in 2022 than the entire state of Louisiana produced in 2021. And Louisiana ranks No. 10 on the list of top U.S. oil-producing states, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.)
Nine of the state’s top 10 producing counties are near Andrews, according to oil production statistics maintained by the Railroad Commission of Texas.
All of that oil adds up to a lot of service calls.
“When the oilfields are down, we try to hold on and make ends meet,” says Nate. “When it’s good, it’s real good.”
Setting expectations
With such a bounty of oilfield customers, there’s stiff competition to sell tires to oil company fleets. But Andrews Tire has made its mark by offering both sales and speedy service.
Nate says that Andrews Tire “can get stuff done a lot quicker than (the competition.) There have been times we have gone on location and someone else has called (another dealer.) The customer asks how long will it take to do six tires or eight tires. The other guy will say, 'Two or three hours.'
“We’ll beat them on that time and say we can get them done in an hour and (the customer) will let that other truck go home.
“We’ve got good people who know what they’re doing.
"We make sure that the guy in the field is pretty knowledgeable in what he’s doing. It is possible to do that work” in the span of an hour.
Nate admits it’s not the norm for two competing tire dealers to arrive on the same job site, but sometimes customers are so desperate to find someone they’ll call in back-ups.
“When it’s busy, you can call for a service truck and they’ll never show up. So companies will call a couple guys to see who gets there first.”
The Bustamantes say they’ve learned it’s absolutely critical to offer reasonable response times and to show up and do the work, as promised.
“If we say we’re going to be there in an hour or 45 minutes, we’re going to be there,” says Nate. “Some of these guys (at other tire dealerships) will get dispatched out and it will be two hours until their truck shows up at a location. We’re pretty good that if we say we’re going to be there in a certain time, we’re there.”
Here’s the unwritten rule: “We don’t lie to the customer.”
“If I’m backed up, I’m going to let him know that ‘I’ve got two jobs ahead of you, but I’ve got you down and we’ll be there,’” says Nate.
In those instances, a customer might say he has another option who can get to him quicker. But Andrews Tire’s best customers say, “I’ll wait for you.”
Victor says that loyalty has been built over the years.
“We’ve been here 20 years and we’ve got some loyal customers who have moved up the ranks in their companies. They’ve stayed faithful to us and we’ve stayed loyal to them. That’s how we beat the competition.”
Door opens for retail growth
The oil industry also attracts plenty of other commercial customers, according to Nate. “We have a lot of over-the-road trucks that are (bringing) supplies to these oil fields. We do a lot of over-the-road trucks going through town.”
And while Andrews Tire hasn’t ventured into servicing national accounts, the business has found steady demand for well-priced medium truck tires. “One of our biggest brands is Roadmaster,” says Nate. “It’s a good tire. The price is right and we stay pretty competitive with other name brands in that area.”
While the commercial tire segment remains the dealership’s focus and represents 60% of its total sales, commercial tire sales have also led to growth on the retail side.
“We do a lot of commercial fleets,” says Victor. Over time, those customers have started bringing their personal vehicles to Andrews Tire for tires and automotive service. Nate says customers who live in Midland, which is 40 miles away, or Odessa, which is 28 miles away, will drive from those larger cities to Andrews to have a new set of tires installed on their personal vehicle.
“They’ll run through here on their day off to put tires on because they don’t want to sit for three hours” in a tire shop closer to where they live.
A customer called from Odessa and asked if the tires he needed were in stock. He made an appointment for Friday morning and was out the door and on his way home again less than an hour later. A few days later, the man called about tires for his wife’s vehicle. She made the same trip.
“That’s the kind of deal that we do quite often,” says Nate.
A healthy workplace
On both the retail and commercial side, Andrews Tire is making a name for itself as a speedy service provider. But the Bustamante brothers acknowledge it can be tough for employees to remain motivated and hustle for every single customer.
One of their secrets is to “have plenty of guys in the shop,” says Nate. “Growing up, when we worked at tire shops, there were two shop guys and two service truck drivers. It was tough to stay motivated because you were doing all the work and didn’t have help.
“We have more people, so it’s not as hard to get the job done.”
The Andrews Tire team also has two other secret weapons — owners who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.
“They see us out there (in the shop) with them,” says Nate. “We’re not sitting in an office, watching them work. We see that the bays are full and we work with them.”
Employees have told them they’ve never had a boss bust a tire or lend a hand when work piles up before.
“When there’s work, we get down and go to work with them,” explains Nate. “The guys see we’re all a team. We’re not going to point fingers and say, ‘You’re not done yet?’”
Dreaming for the future
The Bustamante brothers are proud of what they’ve accomplished, but they still see room to do more in the future.
“Hopefully, we’ll open up another store down the road,” says Victor. “We’d like to open in another town and branch out and make this shop our main warehouse.”
It’s not just a matter of dreaming of getting bigger. The brothers see expansion as a way to secure the business they’ve already established and better protect their employees from the ups and downs of the oil patch.
Victor says, “When oil shuts down, it shuts down completely. That’s why we’re trying to service more of the public” and increase the business’ share of the local retail market.
Opening in another community could also open the door to serving farmers. As it stands now, Andrews Tire is “very light” in agriculture tires, says Nate. But if it had a store even 25 miles to the north and closer to Lubbock, the dealership’s customer mix would be much more heavily tilted toward agriculture.
Another avenue to future growth is adding mechanical truck services or truck alignments. All of those things are possibilities for the future, the brothers say.
No matter what the future brings, the dealership’s commercial tire customers depend on the Bustamante brothers and their team. And that dependency doesn’t end at 5 p.m.
“They don’t care what time of day it is,” says Nate. “If they call at 5:30 and you’re closing down, they expect you to do the job and do it right now. They work 24-hour shifts, seven days a week. You always have to answer the phone.
“If there’s a $300,000 piece of equipment on the side of the road, they need it moved right now. It doesn’t matter what time of the day it is. We’re going to be there.
“I think that’s part of the reason we’ve been successful. Out here, they expect you to do that. It’s not, ‘Let’s see when we can get you in.’ It’s ‘We need it now.’”
And over the years, those demanding customers have spread the word, says Nate, who adds that they tell their peers. “Go to Andrews Tire. They’ll take care of it, no matter what time it is.'"
