What a fleet program covers
Fleet services is the account itself: agreed tire specifications across the units you run, scheduled work rather than reactive work, and one set of records instead of a folder of receipts from wherever each truck happened to stop. It is offered at 49 Purcell locations in 12 states.
Underneath it sit the services the trucks actually consume:
- 24-Hour roadside assistance at 48 locations, for the unit that has already stopped.
- Heavy-duty truck alignment at 40 locations and trailer alignment at 36.
- Tire and wheel balancing at 51 locations.
- Retreading through 54 locations and seven plants.
- Wheel refurbishing at 42 locations.
- Mobile service at seven locations, for planned work at your yard.
Downtime: the number that dwarfs the tire
A tire is a small line item next to a truck that is not moving. A unit stopped on a shoulder is a driver on the clock, a load that is late, and a customer deciding whether to call you next time.
Two services address that, and they are not the same thing. Roadside assistance is unplanned: the unit has stopped and a technician comes to it. Mobile service is planned: tires changed at your yard, on your schedule, across several units in one visit. Mobile service is the rarer of the two, offered at Phoenix, AZ, Springdale, AR, Denver, CO, Springfield, MO, North Las Vegas, NV, Reno, NV and Ogden, UT.
Fleets running outside those areas use roadside assistance for failures and bring units into the store for planned work.
Cost per mile: where it actually moves
Three things move the number, and none of them is the price on the tire.
Retreading. The casing is the expensive part of a commercial tire, and the tread wears out long before a sound casing does. Scrapping a tire at first wear-out throws the casing away. Purcell retreads at seven plants, in Phoenix, Denver, Boise, Potosi, Cleveland, Portland and Salt Lake City, and 54 locations collect casings for the program. See retreading for how casings move.
Alignment. A tractor out of alignment, or a trailer that tracks crooked behind one, scrubs rubber off every mile it runs. Steer tires show it first. Aligning the tractor and ignoring the trailer is half a job, which is why 36 Purcell locations offer trailer alignment alongside heavy-duty truck alignment.
Catching casings early. A tire run flat, even briefly, usually ends the casing. Stopping the unit and calling rather than limping to the next exit is the difference between a retreadable casing and scrap. That single habit is worth more to a fleet's tire budget than most purchasing decisions.
Safety and inspection
Tires are among the first things an inspector looks at, and a tire that fails an inspection stops the truck as surely as one that fails on the road. Scheduled service through a fleet account means tires are looked at on your calendar rather than on the roadside, and the stores that offer scheduled maintenance, 33 of them, can cover the rest of the vehicle at the same time.
In Missouri and Utah, ten Purcell locations also perform state inspections.
Tires for commercial fleets
Commercial tires are carried at 55 locations, trailer tires at 56, and light truck tires at 55 for the pickups and vans that run alongside the heavy units. Purcell works with 14 tire brands across the business, listed on the brands page. Stock varies by location, so confirm sizes with the store.
Who this is for
- Trucking companies and owner-operators running regional and long-haul freight.
- Construction and utility fleets with mixed equipment, where the same account covers a truck, a trailer and a service pickup.
- Municipal, school and transit fleets running to a fixed schedule where a unit out of service has no spare.
- Distribution and delivery operations where tires are consumed steadily and predictably, which is exactly the case a program is built for.
Where Purcell covers fleets
Fleet services are offered in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Washington. North Carolina and Oregon are served by retread plants, in Cleveland, NC and Portland, OR, which take casings for the program.
Start from the locations directory and open the store nearest your routes. Each location page lists its services, its hours and its phone number.