By Renee Hueston, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Aylmer Express
April 14, 2022
While farmer’s ideally make hay while the sun shines, they know that’s not always the case, sometimes needing to be in the barn or field in less-than-ideal or even miserable weather. On other days, something goes wrong with a tire on their equipment. And every now and then both of these things happen on the same day.
Situations like this are just one instance where Aylmer Tirecraft’s 24-hour emergency in-field farm tire service is able to solve a problem and let the farmer get back to work.
And they do whatever is necessary to get the job done. “We’ve had to have the service truck towed out to the tractor and then towed back out of the field,” said Vice-President Janna Summers, “because they’re big heavy trucks. They just sink.”
Shop Manager Greg Thompson added, “And whether you have four-wheel drive or not, it doesn’t matter.”
Janna and Greg, who co-own Aylmer Tirecraft with third partner and shop manager Daryl Smith, recently sat down for an interview with Aylmer Express to discuss the agricultural side of the business.
Greg has been there since 2010, and for Janna, it has been fulltime for 16 or 17 years, but before that parttime, and less formally “since the day I was born.”
The business has been in the stewardship of the Summers family since 1977, when Lyle and Marie Summers bought it. Their son Mike and his wife Lynn Summers then purchased it in 1996 after Lyle’s sudden death. And just over 20 years later in 2018, Mike and Lynn’s daughter Janna purchased the business in co-ownership with Greg and Daryl.
The Talbot Street East business offers tire and wheel sales, repair and installation on standard vehicles, as well as auto repair, commercial and agricultural services. The latter is 25% of Aylmer Tirecraft’s business.
Their farm services are much more than mobile repairs, as they also sell, install and adjust tires for agricultural equipment.
Busy when the farmers are
Business has about 15 on staff though that number fluctuates, expanding to 18 in the busy spring and fall seasons, and down to around 12 when things quiet down in the summer.
The busy season for agricultural tires tends to align with the rest of the business, with spring planting and fall harvest coming at similar times to seasonal tire changes.
There are some customers who buy farm machinery tires in the winter, both planning for the coming season and to take advantage of tax breaks.
They observed that farmers often had the best intentions for ‘pre-maintenance’ and hoped to get work done before a small problem became an in-field emergency, but there are so many other pressing costs that sometimes the preventative work had to be pushed down the list.
When spring comes around and equipment checks are done prior to planting, Greg said customers will “go to the barn and they’ll find 10 flats on stuff that they put away. All of a sudden they need to bring it in.”
They also had noticed in recent years that, as crops were becoming more diverse in the region, those busy seasons for farm equipment, and thus Aylmer Tirecraft, were getting longer. There are now early and late planting and harvests, and as an example they said cucumbers were being done in two sessions. But high growing season in July “ is usually pretty quiet,” said Janna.
Right tire for the right job
Aylmer Tirecraft offers both on-site and off-site service for their agricultural customers, and Janna said it was about an even split between doing the work at their Talbot Street East location or sending the service truck out to the farms.
“We do have guys on call 24 hours that will go out into the middle of a field and get a tractor out of hairy spot,” said Greg.
The mobile service and repair team is sent with all the required equipment, tools and team (usually of two).
Janna said harvest time was when they made the most emergency calls, with tire failures on tractors, combines or even trailers on their way to dryers and storage with a full load.
Agricultural tires required proper installation and setup to ensure they were best serving the farmer for the required work.
“One thing with tractors is that we set them up. Different crops require different row widths, so the tires have to be adjusted. We move them around to match those needs so that they can run up and down the rows correctly,” Janna explained.
Greg said, as an example, “If they plant corn, it’s at 33 inches. They have a tractor that they just used for a different crop. We would spread out or move in the tires to fit between the rows of plants.”
Air pressure was also important to get right with agricultural tires.
Janna said, “Air pressure, even in a regular tractor, can vary greatly. It depends on what the tractor’s doing, how much weight it is pulling, or the soil condition. Air pressures play a big role.”
A more recent innovation in agricultural tires is IF (increased flexion) and VF (very high flexion) options, which can run at much lower pressure than standard tires.
“It gives it a bigger squat,” Greg said. “You get more flotation, but it doesn’t wreck the tire because they’ve made the side wall float enough to take that.”
As an example, he said a normal 38-inch agricultural tire would run at 15 to 16 pounds (per square inch). If you used a VF tire in that same application, it would run about 8 to 9 pounds.
Reducing tire pressure means that the pressure on the ground decreases as well, resulting in less compaction, which allows the soil to retain more moisture and increase yield. But this specialization comes at a cost, sometimes double or more of the standard.
Greg had read reports comparing IF and VF tires, “They do get better yields. It’s proven.”
With larger operations the increase in yield can offset the higher price of the tires, he said. “If you’re super big, then it’s worth it.”
Up and up
When asked for the cost of a ‘standard’ agricultural tire, Greg said $2,800 would be average price for a single 520/85R38.
Janna added, “and these tractors all have eight or more tires on them anymore.”
Greg cautioned, “But prices could soar well above that for specialty tires.”
A tractor the business worked on a couple weeks ago received eight tires and it was $40,000, plus labour.
And that was today’s price. “Just imagine April 1. Add 14% to that,” said Greg. They’d been receiving jumps on pricing from manufacturers steadily since early 2021.
Previously they’d quote for farm or other customers and put a 30-day guarantee on the price, but they could no longer do that in the volatile pricing market.
They also acknowledged that the tires were just a ‘small cost’ of doing business on a farm.
“We’re just talking tires. That’s not the cost of the machine. It takes a lot of money to go through a field.”
As with cost increases, Aylmer Tirecraft was also experiencing delays in the supply chain, and hoping that orders placed in the fall might start arriving soon.
Greg said, “We ordered a couple trailer loads. We should have had them by now.”
It was October when they placed the order, Janna said, and “when we ordered them, delivery was supposed to be mid- February to mid-March. And I think we’ll be lucky if we see them by the end of April.”
Work is worth the reward
In addition to rising prices, the unpredictable supply chain, and service calls in adverse conditions, other challenges include having to make repairs at odd hours or in the dark, though that’s the nature of being on-call.
Another thing they noted was that with farm size growing, so does the machinery, and the tires on those machines, and then the challenge for them are associated tools getting larger too.
Greg said, “Equipment is getting bigger for sure.”
“And the equipment’s equipment, our tools, aren’t always keeping up,” added Janna. “We try to keep the most up to date equipment to be able to help our guys do the work. But sometimes the tools they need haven’t even been made yet.”
Greg references a floater sprayer tire, saying they can be seven or eight feet tall, and six feet wide.
But for Aylmer Tirecraft, those challenges are worth the time, effort and costs it takes to overcome so they can continue to provide top-quality service.
Greg said the greatest reward is seeing a return customer. “The farmers coming back. That’s what we thrive on.”
“We want to keep customers happy,” Janna agreed, especially farmers. “Farmers are a big industry in this area, and they bring a lot to us and to our community.”
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“And not just our community, they feed a lot of people. They feed the world,” Greg added.
