King Tire Service Inc. in Bluefield, W.V., recently reopened the doors of its 25,000-square-foot retread tire facility as the first ContiLifeCycle licensee in the United States.
King Tire, a 40-year-old tire dealership servicing the I-77 and I-81 corridor in southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia, will be supplied with flat, precure ContiTread products from Continental’s tread production facility in Morelia, Mexico. The retreaded ContiLifeCycle tires sold at King’s Tire will be the first produced in the U.S. from flat precure treads featuring the same pattern designs, rubber compounding and tread technology that are included in new Continental brand truck tires.
At the grand reopening event on Sept. 23, 2011, Paul Williams, Continental Tire the Americas LLC’s executive vice president for truck tires, said King Tire's decision to become a licensee represents an important milestone in Continental’s effort to sell premium retreaded truck tires that match its portfolio of new products across the U.S.
“King Tire is recognized by its customers as a premier provider of commercial truck tires, both new and retreads, along this important highway corridor. Over 40 years they have built a fantastic reputation for both consumer and fleet tire sales and service."
(See "ContiLifeCycle plans to expand across the land" for more information on Continental's retreaded truck tire strategy.)
King Tire owner Sam King employs 150 experienced tire personnel at eight locations and sells both commercial and consumer tires, including the Continental and General brands. Its retread facility in Bluefield, formerly a Michelin Retread Technologies plant, employs 16 personnel and is capable of producing up to 60,000 ContiTread truck tires annually.
“We chose to become a ContiLifeCycle licensee so that we could offer something very important to our customers -- performance," said King. "Continental is the first to offer a product that we feel performs the same from the new tire manufacturing all the way through the useful lifetime of the casing.
"This high level of technology, along with Continental’s great customer service and support, is exactly what we’ve been looking for, and we think our fleet customers will feel the same way."
Williams said Continental is actively recruiting more licensees, and is "in talks" with selected truck tire dealers across the U.S. and eastern Canada. He expects to complete several additional licensing agreements before the end of 2011.
For more information about the evolution of the ContiLifeCycle retreading solution in the Americas, visit www.contimedia-cvt.com and click on ContiLifeCycle. For information on the Continental family of premium commercial vehicle tires, visit www.continental-truck.com.
