Piedmont Truck Tires, one of the South’s largest commercial tire dealerships, has entered into a licensing agreement with Continental Tire the Americas, LLC, joining the ContiLifeCycle dealer network.

As a ContiLifeCycle dealer, Piedmont Truck Tires will be supplied with flat, precured ContiTread products, which will allow the commercial tire dealer to produce retreads featuring the same pattern designs, rubber compounding, and tread technology that are included in new Continental brand truck tires.

The affiliation between the two companies began in late 2010 when Piedmont Truck Tires started selling new Continental truck tires. From that point, Piedmont Truck Tires has recognized Continental’s commitment to quality and to becoming a leader in the commercial tire business. 

“We chose to extend our relationship with Continental because we believe in the quality of their products, and see they are moving aggressively to become an industry leader,” said Dan Rice, president of Piedmont Truck Tires. “Continental has proven to be a true partner and we are prepared to take the steps needed to support the growth of both businesses.”   

ContiLifeCycle, Continental’s umbrella for retreading operations, already has a strong foothold in the Americas and since 2011 has steadily built a network of servicing dealers in the U.S.

“Our dealer partners in the ContiLifeCycle network service both national and regional fleet customers who want to extend the performance of their Continental truck tires into the second, third or even fourth lifetime,” explained Paul Williams, Continental’s executive vice president for truck tires in the Americas.

“With our turnkey solution, including premium products, marketing support and competitive pricing, we are confident that we have an attractive program for dealers looking for a manufacturer to be their business partner in retreading. We look forward to our continued partnership with Piedmont Truck Tires and welcome them to our ContiLifeCycle network,” said Williams.

In July 2014, Piedmont Truck Tires began retreading truck tires using Continental’s ContiLifeCycle retreading processes at its 155,000-square-foot facility in Graham, N.C., and also became the first retreader to use Continental’s proprietary new manufacturing control software, CLC Soft.

CLC Soft is a unique solution that provides an interface to manage the entire retread process, from tire collection to data delivery to the retreader’s enterprise resource planning systems. By running as a cloud-based solution, or locally stored on any web-enabled device, CLC Soft provides dealers with a wide range of flexibility.  

Piedmont Truck Tires was incorporated in 1978 as a subsidiary of Piedmont Ford Truck Sales in Greensboro, N.C. In 1984, a new management team was formed for Piedmont Truck Tires, which included all three of the current owners, Jim Rice, Mitch Glover and Dan Rice. Today, Piedmont operates nine commercial truck centers throughout North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.