How Adding Wheel Service Can Keep Your Shop Rolling

When it comes to the quality of wheel service, not all automotive service shops are created equal. While some specialty shops focus solely on specific areas like tire and wheel service, others may offer a broader range of services, including wheel alignments, tire changes and balancing.

However, there are many benefits to offering a full line of wheel service in their shops. In addition to becoming a one-stop shop for all your customers’ routine vehicle maintenance needs, wheel service can help your shop:

1. Service More Vehicles Faster

If you don’t have the right equipment to perform wheel alignments or change and balance tires, that can throw a big wrench into shop efficiency. With recent technological breakthroughs, these processes can be done almost entirely automatically. Equipment like the R1200 Leverless Pro Tire Changer, R155 Pro 3D Wheel Balancer and the tower and cable-free R1090 Wheel Aligner can help you do the work faster while increasing accuracy and eliminating more labor-intensive tasks, which can help boost employee morale and satisfaction.

If you want to keep pace with the EV revolution, wheel service is an absolute must. EV vehicles are significantly heavier than internal combustion engines (ICEs) due to the EV battery, which can weigh from 1,000 to 4,000 pounds on some EVs. This added weight makes the tires on EVs wear much faster, requiring frequent inspection, rotation and alignment.

2. Strengthen Customer Loyalty and Earn Repeat Business

Recommending your customers visit another shop because you can’t offer wheel service is not the best way to earn repeat business. It makes the repair process take longer and requires the customer to go someplace else where you no longer have control over what happens to their vehicle. These ingredients will likely result in a poor customer experience and loss of future business opportunities.

The best way to keep customers coming back to your shop is by making the entire process as simple and pain-free as possible while providing extra value as their one-stop shop. Packaging a complete wheel service solution with tire alignments, balancing and changing is a great way to give the most service value and improve customer loyalty.

3. Increase Profits and Grow Your Bottom Line

You don’t have to become a tire dealer to make money in wheel service. In general, tire and wheel-related issues make up a substantial portion of automotive repairs, so there is ample profit potential in just being able to perform the work.

Maybe you would like to add wheel service but are concerned your shop already has more work than it can handle. That’s not a bad position to be in. However, you can add revenue to your service tickets in multiple ways without increasing cycle time.

For example, if a customer needs brake or suspension work, offering an alignment or balancing package can earn additional revenue from a vehicle already in your bay.

Or, if you are looking for ways to generate more revenue overall, offering wheel service packages like rotation, balancing, and alignment can help you produce more service tickets.

How Rotary Can Help

Whether you are starting from scratch, want to add more wheel service options or need to upgrade to more advanced equipment, Rotary can help.

Our next-generation wheel service equipment can help you increase repair speed and enhance shop efficiency so that you can simultaneously improve the customer experience and your bottom line.

Want More Information on Wheel Service Equipment?

Check out these Rotary resources:

• Wheel Service Training Videos
• Wheel Alignment Buyers Guide
• Tire Changer Buyers Guide
• Wheel Balancer Buyers Guide
• Frequently Asked Questions