Nearly 40 years after Chip Wood opened the first Tire Discounters store in a single-bay shop in Ohio, the Cincinnati-based tire retailer this week will debut its first outlet in Chattanooga - the southern-most market for the growing chain of nearly 100 stores.
Tire Discounters plans to open an 8,000-square-foot store on Highway 153 in Hixson on Wednesday. The new $1.7 million store is the first of what company officials expect will ultimately be nine stores in the Chattanooga region. Within the next couple of months, Tire Discounters will open other stores in Fort Oglethorpe and East Brainerd and company real estate experts are looking at other store sites in high traffic volume areas in and around Chattanooga.
"We're absolutely in love with Chattanooga," Jamie Ward, executive vice president for Tire Discounters, said last week. "Ideally, in the next 12 months, we'd like to have another six locations beyond those we are already building, which would make about nine total stores in the market."
Wood, who still owns the company he started, bought a vacation home on Chickamauga Lake and has been interested in expanding into Chattanooga for years. Last year, Tire Discounters expanded into Tennessee with stores in Nashville and is now up to nine locations in Middle Tennessee.
"Based on the great success we have had in Nashville over the past year and the growth in Chattanooga, we think this will be a strong market for us," Tire Discounters CEO Paul Brunner said. Ward said Tire Discounters may not always be the lowest price option, "but we are committed to giving the best overall value." The company is unique in offering free alignments, along with a lifetime rotation and balancing of any tires, on any tire purchase.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimates more than 70 percent of vehicles in the road are out of proper alignment, increasing the wear and shortening the life of most tires.
"Our free alignments set us a part in the industry, and we believe it's the right thing to do," Ward said. "The customer demographic in Chattanooga really fits our business model, which is to really focus on the customer experience and to do what we can to build and maintain our customer loyalty. We really try to find any way we can to exceed the customer's expectations."
Tire Discounters typically opens each of its stores with about 10 full-time employees, but many of the busy stores have 16 or more employees
Sarah Stimson, executive vice president of talent management for Tire Discounters, said the company is looking to hire up to 100 or more employees over the next year in the Chattanooga area.
"Our objective from recruiting to hiring to training is to get the right people in the right job, because we truly believe you can be an employee for life at Tire Discounters," Stimson said. "We've hired all local people and those we've hired are in Nashville training so they can hit the market running when we open our stores."
Mechanics and maintenance employees at Tire Discounters are Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certified "and we're very training oriented for our employees," Ward said.
The company's main business is selling tires, but the retailer also does a lot of brake work, oil changes, power steering and fluid changes, air conditioning service work, and custom wheels, among other maintenance work.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.