Steve Santabarbara and Ron Ridley have seen plenty of changes in the industrial tire segment since they opened Advanced Tire Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio, 26 years ago.
One thing, however, hasn’t changed, according to Ridley.
“The key to everything is service.”
Advanced Tire’s focus on taking care of customers has been the foundation of its growth and success – making the company a trusted source for forklift dealerships, equipment rental companies and other businesses that need “a fair product at a fair price,” as Santabarbara puts it.
Upwardly mobile
Santabarbara and Ridley formed Advanced Tire in 1998 after they had worked together at another industrial tire dealership.
They rented a facility across the street from a mammoth steel manufacturing plant in the industrial section of Cleveland’s Flats District, where Advanced Tire is still based today.
“We did a lot of work for different foundries back then,” says Santabarbara. “We had a pretty decent base,” which quickly expanded as Advanced Tire began to diversify its book of customers.
Forklift dealerships, in particular, took notice of Advanced Tire. Over time, these businesses – some large, others small – have grown to make up the bulk of the dealership’s clientele.
Advanced Tire runs a mobile press truck for customers who require on-site service.
“And some companies will just pull their tires off and bring them here,” says Santabarbara. “We have one forklift dealer who’ll bring in pallets of tires.”
Advanced Tire has a massive, stationary press at its facility that can handle bigger, heavier tire/wheel assemblies. “It’s able to push 300 tons,” says Ridley.
Most of the dealership’s customers schedule tire replacement ahead of time, which ensures a steady flow of work.
“Every now and then, someone waits too long and a tire falls apart” while in service, which then requires rapid response, says Ridley.
“If you have a backhoe and two guys are working on it and that (machine) goes down, you have two guys standing around with their hands in their pockets.”
Santabarbara says it takes a skilled Advanced Tire technician “an hour to an hour-and-15 minutes” to change four tires on a typical forklift.
Built on the basics
Most of Advanced Tire’s forklift tire clients still prefer “traction tires,” notes Santabarbara.
“If you’re running on a concrete floor, you don’t need a lot of traction unless the surface is wet or you go outdoors and need traction in the snow,” he says.
Other Advanced Tire forklift customers request non-marking tires to preserve the aesthetics of their shop floors. “Probably about 25% of the tires we sell are non-marking.”
Some forklift tire technologies have failed to gain traction with Advanced Tire’s customers, he notes.
“There were tires that had fiberglass in them. There were walnut-impregnated tires, where if you felt the outside of the tire, you could feel little bumps. There were tires impregnated through the rubber with shredded wire to prevent cuts.
“A lot of those were really good ideas, but they cost so much money.”
Advanced Tire’s clients “didn’t want to pay for those extras.”
One “nice thing,” according to Santabarbara, is that forklift tires have not experienced the size proliferation seen in other product segments.
“When I got in the forklift tire business 30 years ago, I was selling the same sizes that I’m selling now,” he reveals. “Once in a while, we’ll see an exotic size come from Europe. I had a customer who called me up looking for a size and I asked, ‘Are you sure about that?’
“Sure enough, I started checking it out and it was a European size. But for the most part, sizes haven’t really changed.
“If anything, forklifts are easier to work on today,” he notes. “Years ago, wheels were a lot heavier. A lot of times, they had drive gears and brakes built into them. Now with five bolts, those wheels come right off.”
One-stop shop
Another advantage enjoyed by Advanced Tire is less competition. The number of industrial tire dealerships in Cleveland has thinned over the years, says Ridley.
“Years ago, everyone was in the (industrial tire) business. You bought a pickup truck and thought you were ready to go. Some customers would use those businesses, but they can’t afford to do that now.”
Today, industrial tire customers prefer to work with dealerships that have the proper equipment, training, support infrastructure and insurance, he explains.
And being able to service customers’ other tire needs doesn’t hurt. In addition to its forklift tire press truck, Advanced Tire operates five commercial tire roadside service trucks that stay busy.
The dealership carries Roadmaster brand medium truck tires and sells Bandag and Goodyear retreads.
It can source other brands from its distributor, North Gateway Tire, which has a big warehouse in Seville, Ohio, just 40 minutes down the highway.
Advanced Tire also offers mobile passenger and light truck tire installation, which Santabarbara calls “a concierge service. We’ve been doing it for more than 20 years.”
Whether selling industrial tires, medium truck tires or consumer tires, “our customers know we will always bend over backwards for them,” says Santabarbara, who adds that Advanced Tire is very active in its community, giving back to a wide range of local organizations.
“That’s also something we feel very good about.”
