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.
