Quote:
Originally Posted by harveyrv
I find it very hard to comprehend that a tire store could possibly have tires on the shelf for 7 years.
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I wish it was that way, but alas it's not. They can sit for even longer than that. Tire manufacturers/distributors don't allow you to turn back in your unsold inventory. Most retailers will DD (discontinued) the older tires at a discount to move them off the shelves after about two years. Notice how I said most (not all)
Same things goes for manufacturers and/or distributors. They'll discount the older tires to move them out of the warehouses.
It's all a very delicate balancing act. The manufacturer/distributor/retailer has to figure out what quantity tires they are going to manufacture/stock/sell in a certain timeframe. They want to have enough tires to meet demand, but not too many to have just sitting around. Nobody makes money on "unsold" tires.
A tire manufacturer usually doesn't produce a certain tire every day. They have what are called production runs. For example, they may make 10,000 tires one week of a certain tire. Really , how many they produce, are decided on how many pre-orders they have. Once they produce these tires, they may not make this certain tire again until they have orders for another 10,000. That may be the next week, the next month, 6 months, etc. That's why there are shortages sometimes on certain tires......as their inventory is sold out, but the next production run hasn't happened. This is happening more and more in the tire biz, as everyone is wanting to carry just in time inventory.
They can also produce so many tires for stock, without having the tires sold, but think they will sell the tires in the near future. I see a lot of this with OE tires on new cars. They may have a obligation to supply, say Ford, with a million tires, but Ford doesn't produce that many vehicles after all. The manufacturer then is stuck with more supply than demand, and he will discount these tires to wholesalers/distributors to move them out of their warehouses and recoup their money the best they can....sometimes at losses. I am seeing Goodyear currently doing this with several tires.
These wholesalers jump on them, because of the discount, and try to sell them too......but they sometimes get stuck also with tires that don't move well.
I just saw one of our wholesalers, selling a tire that I know was discontinued over 5 years ago, so these tires are going to be 5+ years old to start with. They also weren't selling that at 5 year old prices, and were fetching todays prices on that size. I laughed at them when they tried to sell them to me. I also sent back some 4 year old tires they sent me the other day.
Nope, sad to say, I'm not the least bit surprised at 7 year old tires being sold off the shelf.