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I have recently got into the tire business at our dealership and I have done all the usual advertising with free lifetime rotations and also gave a 30 day price guarentee on a set of 4. Does anyone have any more ideas that will work to help drive this business. It has picked up some but not what I am expecting!

It all starts in the service drive. Have your advisors use inspection sheets, tire pressure gauges and depth gauges during write-up(every one, CP and Warranty). Run a spiff program (pay cash) for the advisors for each full set they sell. This has really worked for us, media advertisement has not.

Spiffing has worked for us with the following exception:
Writers should be fully aware that tires must be sold on the drive (do not send/transfer customer to parts for price and availability and tire information)
If writer suggests tires and sends customer to parts then parts counter should get spiff.

the key to any good program is working together,
here is what we did first we took a 5 day survey of every and that means every vehicle that comes into shop, what are the tire depths, 68% needed tires
we were loosing over $1500.00 a month in cfi gredit because we did not hit our tire goal with gm, so we divided the $1500.00 by hours and added that to service writer goal
parts sold tires at COST yes cost advertise the crap out of it all tires at cost
show service how to use tire guides in dealer world, its a easy program
you cant believe the success we get our cfi
"pure profit" service writers are making extra and funny labor hours are up seems some of these vehicles need brakes :]
also gm is running all sorts of programs for tires $5.00 a set well parts gets the $5.00 dont forget we are selling at cost
last monthes tire bill was over $6000.00
if you have any questions about this e-mail and i will explain more
really this program is nothing but a money machine we are up

How did you convince your parts dept to sell at cost? (i.e. what is the benefit to the parts department?) We mark them up 20% and are still very competitive in the market, and have stayed at number one or two in our zone for tire sales every month.

Tires sold at cost......you've got to be kidding.

BillyM

whats the difference between a tire and a oil change,every one is all excited about a lof and do a up sell that you cant make a dime on the oil change sell tires at cost and gee's i get my .5% of cfi that i was not getting "$2500.00" pure profit cant get that from a oil change, dont split it with service either. dont forget 5 bucks a tire and all the other programs for tires, that goes to parts not service dont forget we are selling at cost. also we are surrounded by discount and belle tires same street.
whats the purpose of getting a vehicle in the shop make money, it cost you more to give something away like a free lof or tire rotaion vs. sell a set of tires at cost make some money on the backside and yes can you believe our brake work is up 22% cant take the wheels off doing a lof you may loose to much.
so to make a long story short,
just like plants put a little feed on it and it will grow

"whats the difference between a tire and a oil change"

You're missing the point and your parts dept is losing out on a lot of gross. That has to kill their gross profit %. What happens when you upsell tires off of an LOF? Your parts dept is basically losing money after overhead. We mark tires up a flat fee and are still very competitive. Have you priced the local discount tire shops? You may be leaving money (profit) on the table.

are you medium duty with some light duty truck or car line

Light duty trucks and cars. GM/Dodge dealer