Dawson Tire & Wheel unveils new app for evaluating tire wear
Eric MacPherson is a tire guy. That shouldn’t surprise anyone since MacPherson is CEO of Dawson Tire & Wheel.
Based in Gothenburg, Nebraska, Dawson Tire & Wheel was born in 1998 and has grown into North America’s top supplier of tires and wheels for the agricultural market.
The company recently experienced another birth announcement with the release of its TreadSure app. MacPherson calls the app “his baby.”
“TreadSure is a free app available on Android and Apple devices designed to help ag equipment dealers, specifically employees who are involved in valuation of equipment, to accurately assess the tire tread depth remaining on tires,” said MacPherson. “It is also available to producers (or anyone) who is interested in knowing the percentage of tread remaining on their ag tires.”
To be clear, TreadSure isn’t a tire gauge. But it is a valuable tool to make sure dealers don’t overvalue tires on equipment they take in on trade. MacPherson said calls from dealers led to the creation of TreadSure. “The challenge was that most salespeople could assess equipment based on hours or by running a serial number, but consistently missed how worn the tires were,” said MacPherson. “And, if it was a 4WD with 8 or 12 tires, it could mean overvaluing a trade by $25-$30,000.”
Initially, noted MacPherson, Dawson took to the road to offer training on how to measure tread depth with proper gauges. But that wasn’t enough. Knowing the tread depth is one thing. But in order to assess how much tread was actually remaining on a tire, dealers needed to know the original tread depth.
“To find the original tread depth meant research. The research wasn’t easy to find because of inconsistencies in how manufacturers list their tires and original tread depths,” explained MacPherson.
“The value of TreadSure is that all of the data is in one place. You enter the tire brand and the app gives you the models that brand is available on. Once you choose that, you select the size,” continued MacPherson. “After the tread depth is measured, either in millimeters or 32nds of an inch, the app calculates the remaining tread depth. You can use it as a stand-alone tread depth calculator or you can also enter up to 12 tires on a form if you are valuing a specific piece of equipment and want to save the data to the equipment file.”
As noted previously, when dealers don’t have all the resources needed to correctly assess tread life on tires, a key element of equipment valuation is missing.
“Tires are probably the third most expensive wear item on a piece of equipment, which makes assessing the value of tires crucial,” said MacPherson. “In the past, even being able to measure tread depth accurately has been a problem because some people in the field use everything from their finger to a business card to a tape measure to get a measurement… or they just guess.”
To eliminate the use of fingers, business cards, tape measures or wild guesses, Dawson Tire & Wheel is offering a tread depth gauge for ag tires free of charge to anyone who requests one.
The TreadSure app is available for Apple and Android devices. MacPherson suggested that Apple users use two words “Tread Sure” when searching for the app in the App Store. Android users can find the app in the Google Play Store.
When you see this, you’ve arrived at TreadSure homepage.
This is how TreadSure appears in the Apple App Store.
The homepage for Android users is on the left. The second page shows user options. Download the app in the Google Play Store.
For additional details, visit www.dawsontireandwheel.com or https://treadsure.app.
Article Written By WEDA Staff
