So I'm thinking of opening a tire business.

Thanks everyone.

There is no money in the sale of tires at retail. Too many outlets. Doing related work, mounting customer tires, fixing flats, balancing. Catering to off hours might be good.

I was thinking that. Light mechanical work like brakes, suspension etc. plus what you mentioned. I'm trying to figure out how I can transition from construction worker to tire man as easily as possible. Without borrowing a bunch of money and saying "boy, I sure hope someone buys tires, and my employees don't steal from me!"

I can see the logic in it, but I've never believed debt was a tool.

Off-hours repair is interesting.

There's a shop in town that advertises around the clock service.

Their prices are astronomical. They're not good at what they do. And I've heard too many stories of blatant fraud with their name on it.

The place is always busy.

iceracer wrote: There is no money in the sale of tires at retail. Too many outlets. Doing related work, mounting customer tires, fixing flats, balancing. Catering to off hours might be good.

Exactly, there's not that much markup on tires themselves. Most of the money is made off of installation, balancing, etc... And you'll always be dealing with the "I can order them from Tire Rack for $xxx, can you beat their price?".

BoostedBrandon wrote: I'm trying to figure out how I can transition from construction worker to tire man as easily as possible. Without borrowing a bunch of money and saying "boy, I sure hope someone buys tires, and my employees don't steal from me!" I can see the logic in it, but I've never believed debt was a tool.

Everything you've said is good and true. But it's also the wrong track.

So, do you want to transition from being a construction worker to a tire man, or to a business man? AFAIK, tire men make much less than construction workers. If you want to be a tire man, don't waste your time and money starting a business.

You don't want your employees to steal from you. Good plan. Hire well, hire the best most trustworthy people you can find, and then be prepared to fire any bastard that tries to steal from your business. But don't limit your growth because you are afraid of thieves. They will come, and you must manage them.

You are also right that borrowing a bunch of money and then hoping someone buys a bunch of tires is a terrible business plan. Do not do this. Spend your effort identifying a need and a great opportunity (something someone needs), and THEN go after it with gusto. If you do your homework first (market analysis, business plan, in-depth understanding of your market), then borrowing is an investment in a great idea, not wishful thinking.

Your idea is to do something that ANYONE can do, with very little investment on your part. If in fact there is a need (and it doesn't sound like you have any idea if there is a need), then every part time construction worker yahoo can steal your business with very little effort.

Offer something creative that not everyone can do (plenty of ideas already in this thread).

Business is NOT what you do. It's developing a pool of customers for the service you are offering. Look at it this way... if you have all the tools, skills and resources to do ANYTHING mechanical, you will still have no business if you have no customers.

However, if you had customers standing in line to do business with you, but didn't have tools, skills, or resources, it would be incredibly easy to build a thriving business.

And if you had customers standing in line, it would be really foolish to limit your business growth by refusing to borrow the capital you needed to service your customers.

How many Subarus do you have around? Tire shaving might be a good service to offer.

BoostedBrandon wrote: In reply to WildScotsRacing: I did think about that, as well as becoming a tire rack authorized installer, although I'm sure you need to be somewhat established for that.

I doubt it. I have been going to the same guy for over 10 years now. One man operation with no lift, just a jack with an air compressor/tire machine/balancer. Small crappy warehouse and he is a Tire Rack reccomended installer.

I go there because he is good at what he does, cheap ($10/wheel to remove/install/balance) and he lets you hang around. He will NEVER scratch a wheel and the only quality tool he has is the Hunter balancer, the rest is Chinese.

He has great reviews in the TR website. Its funny to go to the crappy place and see Bentleys, new 911s, etc. He built up his customer base and does that.

The downside is that the whole business is built around himself, I've never seen him go on vacation. He is a slave to his own business.

Robbie wrote: Can you mount a tire balancer and changer in a van? Or truck?

You can, and people have done that successfully. In the mid- to late 2000s in the UK, there were a bunch of smaller outfits that would do exactly that, come to your work/home, install your tyres and then move on to the next customer. They're probably still doing business, but I'm not that plugged into the UK car business anymore. They often had a tie-in with one of the mail order tyre places that would ship the tyres to the customer, then the man in the van would show up and mount them.

Heck there is/was even a franchise that does mobile wheel refurbishment that way - they're more geared towards shops, though. They come to you/the shop, take the tyre off the rim or at least push it back far enough, clean up the rim, fill in the damage and repaint. IIRC they even have a suitably sized lathe mounted in the van so they can cut the face of the rim if necessary.

I frequent a tire store here locally because they're berkeleying fast. They specialize in used tires but can get new if you call at least 2 hours in advance. As an example I needed a tire balanced. Was talking to my mom on the phone as I pulled in and told her that I'd call back. Pulled into an outdoor stall/overhang area and two guys came out within seconds. Told them what I needed they replied $10. I said OK. Quick floor jack and voom voom tire was off. 5 minutes later I called my mom back and she asked if I was waiting for them to do the work. I said nope I'm on the way home. I drive 20 minutes cross town cause I know I'm not going to be sitting in a lobby waiting an hour for them to start.

If there's already a tire shop in Town that is busy it could be a challenge to compete with an established shop, especially part time.

Why not look for a need that isn't being met, or not met well?

Maybe offer overnight maintenance services like oil changes, tire rotation, filters, etc?

Market as a drop off in the evening, pick up in the morning type of service. Something like drop off by 9, pick up after 6?

That way you don't have the customers waiting around, you only stay as long as it takes to get the work done, and you are not waiting in an empty shop for that customer to show up 5 minutes before closing.

Target the commercial guys that need their trucks daily and don't want to have it down for maintenance. Their employee could drop it off at the end of the day and pick it up the next morning.

Or get a driver to drop off/pick up people (or vehicles) to add convenience and make it a premium service to go with the convenience?

I'd pay extra if I didn't have to arrange for rides, or take time out of my day.

Slippery wrote: The downside is that the whole business is built around himself, I've never seen him go on vacation. He is a slave to his own business.

My wife's uncle who owned the tire store took 1 week of vacation a year - his son-in-law took a week off his job and ran the place while he went somewhere to visit family. By Thursday he was always itching to get back home to see how the shop was doing.

Once I was there eating dinner and a factory called his home as they had a flat on one of their tug type trucks and needed it fixed for second shift. We put our forks down and headed over to fix the tire. To keep customer's you have to take care of them no matter what.

jstand wrote: Market as a drop off in the evening, pick up in the morning type of service. Something like drop off by 9, pick up after 6? That way you don't have the customers waiting around, you only stay as long as it takes to get the work done, and you are not waiting in an empty shop for that customer to show up 5 minutes before closing. ... Or get a driver to drop off/pick up people (or vehicles) to add convenience and make it a premium service to go with the convenience? I'd pay extra if I didn't have to arrange for rides, or take time out of my day.

I'm on Fire. https://www.youtube.com/embed/lrpXArn3hII

I too think it would be to tough to compeat against the big chains. That being said I think the mobile truck could fill a void in the market. Maybe include oil changes. I see shops in low income neighborhood s that sell used tires. Those places always seem busy. I'd never buy a used tire but apparently many people do.

Maybe supplement the business with some towing?
I bought a car off a guy who had one flat bed tow truck and worked from home towing for AAA. He seemed happy but said he gets calls 24/7.

You need to understand one of the basic tenets of business.

Cash flow is KING.

Nothing wrong with having debt, as long as it's good debt (Ie, inventory, equipment, building) especially if it keeps your cash flow going.

Very difficult to do a business part time, on the side. People want it NOW and they're unwilling to wait. Also think about what you're talking about doing, you're basically giving up all your free time to run this part time.

Then what? Do you hope to turn it into your full time gig? I can tell you running your own business is very difficult. No benefits, no sick time, no paid vacation time. In my case when I'm gone not only am I not making money, I'm losing money.

This is a big commitment, think about it...

There are six places in the town I live in. One is Walmart, another is a Firestone, and the others are locally owned places.

The intention is to eventually turn this into a full time gig, I'm in the research stage at this point, which is why I asketh ye wise GRM thou'st opinions. I think I may really look toward being a niche filler. After hours service, ordering and installing tires that other guys can't get (one store here had never heard of Hankook RS3's, neither had his distributor and he couldn't get them.

There was a guy here before that was the only person who could mount and balance big mud tires. I watched him mount a 44" swamper one time. He's since passed away. And yes, I realize I can't balance my entire business on one guy buying mud tires.