The past five years in the retread market have been interesting to say the least, according to John Ziegler III, regional sales and operations manager for Massillon, Ohio-based Ziegler Tire & Supply Co.
“2020 was obviously a disaster and then 2021, no one had any tires in their warehouses, so it didn’t matter what you were charging — people were going to buy tires from you,” says Ziegler.
“Then the next year, the market kind of softened, so you had to start lowering prices. But then there was a tread shortage, which caused a huge backlog in the retreading processes. And now when you get caught back up on the shortages, all these tariffs come and retreading slows down.”
This year, Ziegler hopes for an uptick in demand, but says 2025 is off to a slower start.
Jason Cleveland, vice president of manufacturing at Byron Center, Mich.-based Wonderland Tire Co., says he expects a “relatively flat year as far as retread sales.”
Black's Tire Service Inc. dba Carolina Retread, which is based in Whiteville, N.C., is preparing for a flat market as well, according to Rick Benton, who directs the company's wholesale division, BTS Tire & Wheel Distributors.
Dorsey Tire Co. Inc. expects demand to decline more as fewer trucks are on the road, according to Bruce Chamblee, chief operating officer for the dealership, which has locations in Georgia and South Carolina and is based in Pooler, Ga.
“We are planning on demand holding steady,” says Brian Chase, president of Rice Tire, which is based in Frederick, Md. Tariffs on imported TBR tires from Thailand “will play a big factor one way or another.”
Steve Bobovnik, vice president of operations at Mulberry, Fla.-based Conlan Tire Co. LLC, says tariffs that were imposed last year on TBR tires from Thailand will help boost demand for retreads and could lead to market expansion.
Mark Anderson, senior director of procurement at Commercial Tire Inc., which is based in Meridian, Idaho, expects 3% to 5% growth in demand for retreads this year.
Noah Hickman, president of H&H Industries Inc. In Oak Hill, Ohio says his business is already seeing an increase in demand on the OTR tire side and specifically, “mining tires in big haul tire sizes of 33.00R51 or 27.00R49s because of the performance these tires provide today.”
H&H Industries has “done more OTR retreads than we did in all of the first quarter last year. Our spring and early summer forecasts are promising.”
Imports
Hickman says his company’s biggest competitors aren’t other retreaders. His fiercest competition is lower-tier, less-expensive tires that have been coming into the market. It’s even impacting his company’s tire repair business.
He says, “When a customer sends in a tire that has a significant cut, it now becomes an issue of, 'Is this tire’s value enough to invest more money into?’”
Because of this, Hickman is seeing a higher rejection rate because customers are saying, “No, that’s too much money to put into a lower-tier tire.”
Ziegler has similar thoughts. “The biggest problem, by far, is the virgin, new import trailer tire being — at this point — almost cheaper than a retread cap and casing,” he says, adding that some customers will opt for new tires.
“In doing that, people are going further and further away from retreading.”
Ziegler says smaller fleets are gravitating more towards less-expensive, new TBR tires.
“The mega fleets of the world — Walmart, Swift, J.B. Hunt — they can’t afford to only run virgin import tires.”
Ziegler Tire has started selling some less-expensive imports to adapt to the market. “We realized we could either get in the game or sell zero retreads. If the customer isn’t going to buy retreads at all and they can go down the street and buy cheap imports from another dealer, all of a sudden, we’re losing sales.
“Right now, if your price (for a retreaded truck tire) is $200 and the guys down the road are selling for $196, (customers) are buying the one down the road,” says Ziegler. “It’s all extremely transactional right now.”
If more tariffs are placed on imported tires, “they’re going to be $300 instead of $200 and people will realize it's not a good deal and come back to retreading,” says Ziegler. “But if these import tires continue to be priced where they are, it’s going to be tough for the retread market to rebound.”
Retread production
According to MTD research, truck tire retread production decreased slightly in 2024 versus prior-year levels.
David Yarbrough, director of company sales for Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Parrish Tire Co., says Parrish Tire’s retread business was down in 2024 compared to 2023.
He says increasing freight rates helped contribute to the decline in demand and believes that the overall state of the freight market will be the biggest challenge for Parish Tire’s retreading business this year.
At Dorsey Tire, Chamblee says he saw a decrease in demand for heavier treads and an increase in demand for trailer treads. “Units were up by 6% and rubber pounds were down by 15%.”
Retread production was down at all of Wonderland Tire’s plants last year. Cleveland attributes this to a down economy and the impact of low-cost TBR tire imports on the marketplace.
Bobovnik says Conlan Tire’s retread production decreased in 2024, going from 980 units per day to 906 units a day.
H&H Industries’ overall retread production “decreased for us in the first half of 2024 but increased in the second half,” says Hickman. “Production for 2024 overall had a slight decrease in units, but due to retreading larger size tires our sales were up from previous years. Sales in smaller, articulated sizes continue to decrease due to new import tire cost.”
Todd Sumerel, president of Erlanger, Ky.-based Bob Sumerel Tire Co., says his company’s retread production increased by around 5% in 2024.
Chase says Rice Tire’s retread production was up slightly, but the increase came from national account business, not from local books.
Doug Daniels, president and chief operating officer at Daniels Tire Service in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., says his company’s retread production increased by around 12% due to expansion of the company’s customer base.
2025 challenges
Bobovnik says quality casing availability will be Conlan Tire’s biggest challenge this year.
Benton of Black’s Tire/Carolina Retread says staffing and business economy will be his company’s biggest challenges, along with cost of operations.
Black’s Tire/Carolina Retread is “still trying to build more training and culture for the future,” he notes.
Hickman says employees and benefits are one of his biggest challenges for this year — specifically health care and insurance.
“It seems like each year it gets harder and harder to stay on top of and it seems like every year our costs keep going up,” says Hickman.
Despite rising costs, he says H&H Industries is continuing with its mantra of bringing more value to the products and services it offers. He explains that his company is trying to offer customers things that will set it apart.
