Shrader Tire and Oil is celebrating 30 years of manufacturing retreads this year. The Toledo, Ohio-based company celebrated 75 years of being in business in 2023 and reached the new milestone in 2024.
“Getting into the retread manufacturing business has been a key to our growth”, said Shrader Tire and Oil President and CEO Joe Shrader. “Having our own retread facilities has allowed us to better serve and deliver high-quality tires to our customers.”
Shrader Tire and Oil purchased a 12,000-square-foot building just outside of the Village of Blissfield in 1993 and opened its first retread plant the following year with a staff of four – a manager and three employees.
The retread production plant soon outgrew its space and Shrader Tire and Oil added 16,000-square-feet to the plant, producing Oliver-brand retreads.
Oliver, which is owned by Michelin today, was America’s first retread rubber brand.
Truck tire retreads deliver huge savings to fleet managers and owner/operators and have a massive impact on the environment. It is estimated that nearly 300 million tires from cars and trucks are thrown away by Americans each year, but the use of retreads saves hundreds of millions of gallons of oil, and millions of tires continue a useful life rather than being consigned to a tire pile or landfill.
Simply put, retreading is recycling and conserving oil. The synthetic rubber components in a new medium truck tire require about 22 gallons of oil, but it takes only seven gallons to retread that same tire.
In 2005, Shrader Tire and Oil converted its retread operations to Michelin in Melvindale, Mich. A second Michelin manufacturing plant was purchased in 2017 in Pemberville, Ohio.
Today, Shrader Tire and Oil continues to utilize Michelin Retread Technology at those two locations, producing hundreds of thousands of retreads.
“We are proud to have been in business for 76 years and we are committed to manufacturing only the best retreads for our customers.”
Shrader Tire & Oil is the premier tire and lubricant distributor in the Midwest. With locations in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, Shrader Tire and Oil has 14 truck tire and fleet service centers, two state-of-the-art Michelin retread plants, 4 bulk lubricant operations and a 24-hour emergency road service network.
TOLEDO, Ohio (April 22, 2023) – Today is Earth Day in the United States, but in the truck tire retread industry, we believe in celebrating the environment every day.
Recycling end-of-life tires is a major challenge for the tire industry and its customers. Around one billion tires reach the end of their useful lives each year. Recycling is part of a process that includes collecting end-of-life tires, sorting them, and giving them a new purpose. Around 65 percent of them are collected for some form of reuse, roughly 70 percent are recycled to recover their materials, and the remaining 30 percent are generally used for energy recovery.
Truck tire retreads deliver huge savings to fleet managers and owner/operators and have a massive impact on the environment.
With two retread facilities in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan, Shrader Tire and Oil is part of the recycling process.
It is estimated that nearly 300 million tires from cars and trucks are thrown away by Americans each year, but the use of retreads saves hundreds of millions of gallons of oil, and millions of tires continue a useful life rather than being consigned to a tire pile or landfill.
Simply put, retreading tires conserves oil. The synthetic rubber components in a new medium truck tire require about 22 gallons of oil, but it takes only seven gallons to retread that same tire.
Retreading truck tires in the U.S. reduces carbon emissions by 396,000 tons, or 70 percent annually. Finally, nearly 40 pounds of raw material including rubber, steel and carbon black is saved for every retreaded tire manufactured.
Shrader Tire & Oil is the premier tire and lubricant distributor in the Midwest. With locations in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, Shrader has 15 truck tire and fleet service centers, two state-of-the-art Michelin retread plants, a bulk lubricant operation and a 24-hour emergency road service network.
What’s the latest in the tire industry? How about turning dandelions into natural rubber?
Goodyear is collaborating with the Department of Defense, United States Air Force and other organizations to develop a dandelion-sourced natural rubber for military vehicles, aircraft and truck tires. A recent report published in Tire Business says that a multi-year, multi-million-dollar program aims to get dandelion-sourced domestic natural rubber to market more quickly.
Natural rubber is a key raw material in more than 40,000 products, used in mattresses, medical gloves and shoe soles, as well as tire production.
Dandelions can be grown in temperate rather than tropical climates and harvested in about six months, much more quickly than natural rubber trees, which take about seven years to produce the necessary latex required for natural rubber.
“Global demand for natural rubber continues to grow, and it remains a key raw material for the tire industry,” said Chris Helsel, senior vice president of Global Operations and chief technology officer for Goodyear. “This is a critical time to develop a domestic source of natural rubber, which may help mitigate future supply chain challenges.”
The NR produced will be used to make military aircraft tires that will be built and tested by Goodyear in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force’s AFRL at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
“We’re excited about this project, which holds a lot of promise for domestic rubber production and shows how bio-industrial manufacturing can help secure the domestic supply chain,” said Melanie Tomczak, chief technology officer at BioMADE, a partner in the research and development.
