A team made up of tyre fitters from Elite Garages of Horsham and Broadway Tyres of High Wycombe demonstrated their high speed skills by winning Michelin F1 Pitstop Challenge at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
MAHA UK has appointed Peter Clarke to its sales team. Mr Clarke will now be responsible for providing support to the company’s distributors in central and north west England, and in promoting the sale of its commercial vehicle test lanes.
Mr Clarke boasts years experience in the garage equipment industry, having worked for Brown Brothers’ Garage Equipment Division, Gemco and Trojan Garage Equipment in south Gloucestershire.
Commenting on Mr Clarke’s appointment, Kevin Howard, director of sales and marketing, said, “We are delighted to have Peter as part of our team. His previous experience in the garage equipment industry will aid MAHA’s continuing success in supplying quality test and inspection equipment to garages and motor manufacturers. He has a thorough knowledge and understanding of the motor industry which will naturally be a great benefit to MAHA.”
The tyre trade has been buying and selling tyres for over 100 years. One might have imagined that it would have settled on a profitable, manageable and structured method of distributing car tyres from manufacturer or importer to retailer by now. However, it hasn’t and one suspects it never will.
Way back in the mists of time life was simpler. The tyre manufacturers supplied their tyres to the vehicle manufacturers and tyres were supplied at the local garages. The number of brands available was limited and people tended to buy what they wanted at the garage displaying their brand’s logo.
In the 1960’s tyre manufacturers would have supply arrangements with local dealers who would agree to take their brand of tyres and then redistribute to local tyre fitters, all at fixed retail prices of course. Then the manufacturers decided that they could deliver, and they cut out the local dealer, they set up their own logistics operations and offered to deliver tyres to anyone who would buy them. The result was chaos.
In the meantime, the network of local tyre wholesalers in the UK was developing. The manufacturers realised that they could not survive delivering just their own brands so they delved into the market with their own tyre wholesale operations.
At the same time there had been the development of a number of regional tyre wholesalers. Of which Stapleton’s had become a national player.The co-operation of strong regional wholesalers across the UK culminated in the establishment of Group Tyre.
Whilst Stapleton’s and Group Tyre dug in for a long war a third player entered the fray. Hampshire-based Micheldever, the sleeping giant, decided to make some moves to expand out of its Southern base. It first bought Southam Tyres, then opened a warehouse at Chepstow, and now Halifax with rumours of interests in the North East being rife. Battle was joined.
To listen to the larger operators it would be fair to presume that no independent had any involvement in the fleet market or the franchised dealer sector. However the independent trader is well aware of the situation and whilst some may be content to work on ever diminishing markets, others may be taking another view of the situation.
It was in September 1937 that Sidney Stapleton founded the company in Watford’s High Street in premises that remained Stapleton’s Head office up until 1970. The company distributed tyres to garages and, when they began to emerge, to specialist tyre retailers. Stapleton’s became active in the retail side in addition to supplying tyres. In 1994 Stapleton’s Tyre Services was sold to Japanese company Itochu. In 1997, Roy Croft stepped down as MD, being appointed non-executive Deputy Chairman. Ashley Croft and Peter Regan (who joined the company from Itochu) took over as joint Managing Directors. Ashley later became sole MD. During this period, Stapleton’s had continued to grow, and the ambitions of the company were exemplified by the construction of a purpose-built headquarters, incorporating a warehouse and offices in Letchworth, Herts and a major distribution centre in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. At this time, Stapleton’s was offering a daily delivery service across most of the UK. It was in October 2002 that news broke that Ashley Croft had resigned as MD for personal reasons, thus severing a 44-year family link with the company. His place as MD was taken by Mike England, formerly Retail Director.
More than half of garages across the UK deliver low standards of service to customers, according to new research published recently. Key car industry figures have met with Consumer Minister Melanie Johnson and Industry Minister Alan Johnson to discuss the problem. The Ministers welcomed a pledge from the industry to sign up in principle to develop a ‘Good Garage’ scheme to tackle the low standards. A recent government-sponsored mystery shopping survey found that 51 per cent of garages missed one or more safety-related defects in cars or items that should have been picked up in a regular servicing. The survey also revealed that, only five per cent of garages sampled carried out a thorough service against the manufacturer’s schedule and were judged to be ‘very good’, · 86 per cent of garages missed at least one introduced fault · 40 per cent of garages missed at least one service item; 51 per cent if the customer was female, 33 per cent if the customer was male; and · 27 per cent of fast fit centres recommended unnecessary replacement of parts.
Government sponsored mystery shopping in the UK revealed that 51 per cent of garages missed one or more safety related defects and that the standards of servicing varied widely and that 86 per cent of garages missed an introduced fault on test vehicles. Some 27 per cent of fast fit centres recommended unnecessary replacement of parts. The government and industry are to work together to promote the “Good garage” scheme to deliver a better deal for consumers.
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