Scheduling is the service
In a metro fleet, the tire work is rarely the difficult part. Getting the vehicle to the shop without losing a working day is.
A fleet that books tire work reactively takes vehicles out of service at the worst possible times, because a failure chooses its own moment. A fleet on an account takes them out at the times it chooses: between shifts, on a lighter day, in the order that suits the schedule rather than the order things break.
That is most of what an account is buying in an area like this one, and it is worth more than the price per tire that gets negotiated instead.
What gets agreed
Specifications by position and vehicle type, so the same tire goes on each time. A schedule built around your operating pattern. Terms and authorization settled once, which decides how fast a roadside call moves. Records, so tire spend becomes a figure per unit.
The services it draws on here: heavy-duty truck alignment, trailer alignment, car and light truck alignment, OTR services, retreading, tire and wheel balancing and wheel refurbishing.
Mileage is the wrong measure here
Metro fleets look at odometer readings and conclude their tires should last. The tires disagree, and the tires are right.
Stop-start work scrubs tread without covering distance. Tight turns in yards and loading areas drag tires sideways across pavement. Curbs and plates move alignment. A delivery vehicle doing modest miles can wear tires faster than a highway unit doing several times as many.
Specify for the work rather than for the mileage, and judge the result by how the tires wear rather than by how far they went.
The light vehicles count
Most fleets around here have vans, pickups or cars attached to them that nobody includes in the tire budget. Renton carries all nine Purcell tire categories and aligns light vehicles, so those belong on the same account as everything else.
What is not available at this store is general vehicle repair. That is at Monroe, which runs seventeen services.
What to bring
The unit list by type with sizes and positions, light vehicles included. The operating pattern: routes, shifts, and where the vehicles sit between them. What has been failing. Who authorizes work, and how you want it billed and reported.
About this store
The Renton store is open Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, managed by Chris Contrades. Lacey runs the same nine services to the south.
See the national fleet services page for the other 48 locations.