Vendor Newsmaker Q&A Jeffrey Parks, Retread Tire Association

Sept. 6, 2018
Jeffrey Parks is managing director of the Retread Tire Association, and he recently provided a detailed view of the retreaded tire marketplace.

Jeffrey Parks is managing director of the Retread Tire Association (RTA). In response to questions posed by Aftermarket Business World, he recently provided a detailed explanation of the retreaded tire marketplace:

Q: What is the background of your organization? What does RTA do?

A: The Retread Tire Association was started by a gentleman named Harvey Brodsky, who was already a giant in the retreading industry when he began our association in 2010. Harvey had worked in the tire industry, and then as Managing Director for TRIB (the Tire Retread Information Bureau) for 30 years, and in 2010 he branched off on his own to start RTA. He based the goals and mission of RTA on the same commitment to personal attention and camaraderie that he had long endorsed to the industry: Create business and trust built on a handshake, integrity and good information.

It didn’t take long for RTA to grow to over 350 members and it continues to grow. We strive to be a friend and an ally to our partners in the transportation industry, truckers, fleet managers, and also to share information with them about retreading, the process, distribution, problem-solving, new tire manufacturers, and the best ways for our members to network with these larger companies and their affiliates.

I took over as managing director in 2016, and we continue to follow Harvey’s stringent goals of one-on-one communication with our members, and we adhere to those standards while expanding the scope of RTA.

For example, we send out thousands of memos every year for our members, including Tire Casing Memos, Supplier/Equipment Memos, Export Memos, News You Can Use and Promotional Product Memos; all designed to get a clear, easy to read message to our recipients. We act as a clearinghouse for all types of information about the tire and retreading industries.

Our Casing and Supplier/Export memos reach over 900 targeted email addresses globally, and we send out our News Memos to over 4,000 global recipients, all who have requested to receive our information. RTA is all about building relationships. It’s very important that we make sure that everything we send is targeted, and never to be perceived as spam. We are continually updating our recipients’ list to keep it fresh and pertinent.

We also network with our members and associates by attending tire expos, conferences and industry events that help educate and inform the public about retreads.

Q: How can a store owner and repair shop benefit by offering retreaded tires?

A: Ultimately, a tire shop wants to sell a quality product, and gain repeat customers, so by offering retreads you add at least one more option to your sales potential. There are many ways you can look at the benefits of retreads to the consumer, and they are primarily cost savings, environmental advantages, and safety and durability.

Regarding significant cost savings, a good tire retreading program can save large truck fleets hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, and it’s why companies such as UPS, the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx depend on retreads to bring their costs down, and of course, that action benefits anyone who uses their services.

On a smaller scale, small fleet managers or individual owner-operators can find measurable savings through the use of retreads. Unless you’re in business for a hobby, you want to keep all the money on your side of the table that you possibly can. The bottom line is: Retreads will save you money.

Retreads are also very environmentally friendly. Looking at the environmental benefits of retreads as compared to virgin tires, there’s no comparison. Retreads beat the pants off new tires in that regard. We’ve all seen the statistics showing that retreading a tire will consume around 7 gallons of oil, while manufacturing a brand new tire can take up to 22 gallons. There are an estimated 24 million retread tires sold every year, and the use of those retreaded tires save on-average 360 million gallons of oil per year. 

In addition to that, keeping millions of tires out of our waste stream, our landfills and environment is imperative. We can no longer afford to be a throw-away society, and retreads are one of the only recycled products that are virtually 100 percent recyclable, many times over. With the state of California alone, producing more than 44 million waste tires annually, you can see that that it’s imperative that all of us do our part to reduce those waste numbers. Retreading is recycling. There really are no disadvantages. In reality, using retreads can be a huge benefit across the board. 

Another benefit is that the need for various tire sizes and types of highway, or off-road conditions, is addressed thoroughly by retreaders, making them available for just about all uses worldwide. The safety and durability of retreads continues to evolve and you can expect a retreaded tire to last just as long as a new tire, with the added benefit of retreadability to rebuild the tire and get it back on the road for numerous life spans.

The quality and the life cycle of retreads are improving every day. New tread rubber compounds, new equipment and techniques, all point to retreads getting better and better each year. There is a continual effort on behalf of the retreaders to boost their quality, so just like any other product they are continually trying to improve their standards and maintain the economic benefits that make retreading so attractive.

And then the $100,000 question: Are retreads really, really safe? The answer in a word is YES. Millions of retreaded tires are safely in use worldwide on commercial and military airlines, fire engines and other emergency vehicles, school and municipal buses, racecars, taxis, package delivery services and postal services in most countries worldwide, as well as on commercial trucks of all sizes.

In the U.S. there is even a Federal Executive order (13149) MANDATING the use of retreaded tires on many federal vehicles. None of the above would dream of using retreads if they were not safe. The safety, performance and reliability of retreads being produced today, in top quality retread plants, equal that of the major brand (and far more expensive) new tires.

Q: How can motorists benefit by purchasing retread tires?

A: If you drive for a living, as do many in the transportation industry, your pursuit of cost savings are one of your primary goals. The cost of a retreaded tire versus a brand new tire can be significantly lower. But often for motorists, the cost savings aren’t as apparent, as is the case when faced with a buying choice. Should you buy a lower cost, new Chinese tire, ones that have flooded the market and created very real competition for retreads? Or should you consider, not just purchasing any tire, but also supporting this retreading industry, the jobs that it creates, the opportunities it supports for growth and societal change, and the renewability that is part of our responsibility as consumers?

Furthermore, by purchasing retreads, you are enabling the recycling of tires in a big way. Retreading creates some incredible by-products that are well known and in use every day whether consumers see them or not. 

Part of the retreading process includes the creation of rubber buffings. These are the by-products of grinding down the old surface of the used tire casing to get it ready for retreading. These buffings are collected and sold as another commodity which is then manufactured into safety playground surfaces, sports turf fields and other products that are all around us.

In addition, recycled tires that cannot be retreaded can be chopped and ground into scrap rubber, by separating the fibers and steel from the rubber scrap, and then reused in asphalt and roadway and drainage systems. So you can see that drivers are benefiting from retreads whether they are driving on them or not.

Q: Are retread tires mostly used only by truckers?

A: Approximately 15 million truck tire retreads are produced in the U.S. per year, and the trucking industry would certainly be considered the major consumer of retreaded tires.

But when you consider the expense of larger tires, including aircraft tires, planes, OTR tires for construction, mining equipment and specialty uses, you can see easily that retreading is a huge benefit to those industries. As with even the smallest tire, once the tread on the surface has been worn down the casing, sidewalls and body of the tire, if undamaged, can and should be re-used as many times as safely as possible to get the biggest return from that tire investment. It’s not unusual for a construction or mining tire to cost upwards of $40,000, so any company that isn’t enacting a repair, recycling and retreading program at that scale is practically unheard of.

For truckers though, tires are the third most significant operating cost of a fleet, right after fuel costs and labor. There is next to nothing that you can do about the fuel and labor costs, but retreading brings the tire component cost down, and the bottom line way up.

Q: Are retread tires also being used on passenger cars?

A: At one time the U.S. had a much more substantial passenger retread market than we do today, and much of the decline in passenger use can be attributed to the cost of new tires versus a retread. The public perception of retreads took a hit in the public imagination in the early 1960s and has not really recovered from that in the U.S.

Many years ago, your grandfather’s retreads were often done in small shops and garages, and on the fly, leaving durability and safety in question. Not so today. With modern reputable retreading techniques, trained operators, plants and equipment, a retreaded tire is as good or better than a new tire. 

Passenger retread tires are manufactured to the same high standards as truck tires, but as the public demand for passenger retreads diminished, it became harder for retreaders to pursue that dwindling market. Can that dip in the market be turned around? Many experts say that’s unlikely, but at RTA we say, “Never say never.” Who knows? The primary solution is to supply education and awareness by the industry, to the consumer, and that push is not being pursued nearly as much as it could be. Which again is one of the reasons why RTA exists.

Despite the quality and excellence that the retread industry has developed to create a product that could be at least as good as new tires, the public perception of retreads has been unfairly associated with old ideas about the early days of retreading and its missteps. Those issues have long been resolved, but we need to expose the public more and more to info about how this retreading industry benefits all.

Q: What efforts are being extended to encourage increased use of retreads on passenger cars?

A: The public perception of retreading is changing rapidly. Nowadays, there should be no doubt about the quality of retread tires. In fact, there are important advancements made every single year.

We are determined to counter criticism born out of ignorance. In such cases, we invite critics to visit a modern retread plant so that we can show them that their criticism is unfounded. We also address instances in the media where retreads are painted in an unfair light. We write letters and send information to counter negative ideas about retreading.

The retread industry works hard to supply a viable, safe and state-of-the-art alternative to buying new tires. But not only that, retreaders work at improving the image and message of buying retreads at every opportunity. And again that’s part of our job here at RTA; to dispel myths about retreads and to promote the features and benefits in cost savings and environmental responsibility.

Q: How are retread tires manufactured?

A: Well to start with, it helps to take a look at what the components are. First of all, a used tire casing is the starting point for all retreaded tires. These casings are bought and sold by reputable casing dealers worldwide, at market prices, and they are shipped to and from destinations all over the globe. The casings are analyzed by these casing dealers and graded for their age, condition, and retreadablity.

We could take days explaining the actual retreading process, but in a nutshell it entails the following in a retread manufacturing plant.

The basic steps are: Initial inspection to make sure the casing is acceptable, skiving or taking out any visible imperfection and patching those flaws with new gum rubber, buffing of the worn tread surface to prepare a clean surface to receive new tread rubber, shearography or electronic inspection of the inner components of the casing, tread preparation and rebuilding the tread surface, enveloping and vulcanization of the repaired tire to bond the new tread, and then final inspection including X-ray, another round of shearography and high-pressure testing.

This process, along with improved rubber chemistry and low rolling resistance tread designs, has led to longer lasting and more trouble-free retreads.

This is a simple overview but you can get a much better idea of the process by simply Googling the topic and watching some of the very good retread plant process tours that you’ll find on YouTube and on retreaders’ websites.

Q: What about the “road alligators” seen along highways?

A: As with all tires, a retread can come apart if it is not properly maintained, just as new tires will also come apart if they are improperly maintained. In fact, there is ample evidence compiled in studies to back up the claim that retreads are NOT the main cause of tire failure and road alligators.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) commissioned a study a few years ago and the results of the study verify that the main cause of tire debris on our highways comes from tires – whether retreads or new – that have not been maintained properly. The main cause of improper tire maintenance is under inflation, followed closely by over inflation, mismatching of tires in dual wheel positions, improper tire repairs, misaligned vehicles and tires that are being driven with less than the legal limit of tread remaining.

But are retreads safe? The answer in a word is YES. Millions of retreaded tires are safely in use worldwide.

Q: Can retreads be used for racing or other specialized applications?

A: Yes, absolutely, there are many tire retreaders who specialize in racing and drifting tires, and also vintage tires for antique automobiles using molds and tread patterns from the original tire manufacturers.

Q: Are the purchasing channels for storeowners the same for retreads as they are for regular tires? 

A: With the growth of the retreading industry on some levels, the scale has changed over the years regarding many of the smaller retread plants, the “Mom and Pop” family businesses that continue today on a lesser pace than they once did. We would encourage any retailer or distributor to contact us for more information about some of these smaller businesses, but retailers can easily find that most of the major new tire manufacturers worldwide pursue at least some type of retreaded tire products to offer or recommend to their customers.

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About the Author

James Guyette

James E. Guyette is a long-time contributing editor to Aftermarket Business World, ABRN and Motor Age magazines.

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