The trio opened their independent full-service Goodyear store three years ago, each bringing their experience at corporate-owned Goodyear stores in the Denver area.

"A customer who buys a set of tires is usually a customer for life," Gow said, who along with his business partners has spend more than 25 years at corporate-owned Goodyear stores.  "If you take care of them first, they'll come back."

The focus of the owners is to run the shop as if it's neighborhood business.  "You're building relationships that drive repeat and referral business," Franceschi said.

"Good business pays for itself," Gow said. "If we see a customer is in need of brakes soon when installing tires, for example," he said they'll suggest conducting the brake repair on their next tire rotation.  This tact builds trust with the customer, he said, instead of focusing on short-term gains.

Although tires account for only 30 percent of the shop's business, they play a vital role in attracting customers who are familiar with the Goodyear, Kelly, and Dunlop brands.   "It's a really big flag to fly," Gow said, adding that their nationwide warranty is another great selling point.  "Obviously, service is a large part of the business," he said, emphasizing that they place equal emphasis on installing reputable, name-brand replacement parts.

Free maintenance checks are offered at the customer's request, Franceschi said.  "Just by looking at the tires we usually can tell if the vehicle needs an alignment or not," he said. 

For alignments, the owners said they rely on their Hunter machine and quality alignment shims and sleeves to do the job right.
For toe and camber adjustments, Weinreich said they prefer to use Specialty Products' Ezshim.  "Specialty's cataloging system and availability is good," he said, adding that they mainly purchase them from U.S. AutoForce (formerly known as T-K Distributors), Myers Tire Supply, and NAPA.  The trio said the brands they prefer to install are Raybestos, Monroe, AcDelco, Moog, and Motorcraft because of reliability and warranties.   There are some applications, however, where the shop prefers to install OE parts, they said.

"If there's an electric pump in the gas tank, we'll use the OE part," Gow said, assuring that the fuel system functions as the automaker's engineers intended.

When choosing which wholesaling dealerships to conduct business with, Gow said they pick dealers that have quick delivery time and don't hassle them if there's a return; preferred wholesalers include Mike Naughton Ford, Lithia Dodge of Cherry Creek, Ed Bozarth Chevrolet, Burt Chevrolet, and AutoNation Go dealers for imports.

For heavy repairs such as replacing an engine or transmission, the trio said they prefer to install remanufactured OE crate engines from dealerships because of the three-year, 100,000-mile warranties Ford, GM, and Chrysler offer. 

"If you install an engine or transmission here, the warranty is honored any new car dealership nationwide," Weinreich said.  On some hard-to-find units, the shop uses Jasper Engines & Transmissions because of their extensive inventory, he added.

Having a sales representative call on the shop is another deciding factor for doing business with a vendor, they said.

"You're going to buy from the people that stop by and check on you," Weinreich said, adding that they frequently deliver valuable information on products and training.  For example, they said, the shop's two technicians, Mike Newsom and Gary Colvin, recently attended an A/C clinic at Performance Radiator in Denver that they heard about through their sales representative.

Educating consumers on their vehicles' technology is also important, the owners said, citing tire-pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) as an example.

"If the TPMS light is on, they come in and think it's a simple fix," Gow said.  "Customers don't realize what it takes to recalibrate them."  He said they access most of the reset information through the Mitchell 1 TPMS guide, which has information on 45 2007 models.  Most of the systems can be reset without a TPMS tool, he pointed out.

All things considered, the owners said they have reached their initial benchmark in overall sales this year despite the sagging economy and are planning to open a second location in 2009.  "It's driving people to fix what they have rather than buy new," Franceschi said.