Companies like Discount Tire empower customers to make more informed decisions about what tire is best for them by developing a leading-edge tire recommendation tool called Treadwell. Consumers can access Treadwell online or on their phones while they research or shop for tires and, in a minute or less, receive the same recommendations used by Discount Tire’s store experts.

According to Discount Tire, in 2010, approximately 5,000 tire options were available for drivers of everyday vehicles, compared to almost 20,000 options available today. Given the overwhelming number of options and variations, Discount Tire sought to find a way to leverage new technologies and its decades of customer care and expertise to simplify the tire shopping process and help consumers find the best tires based on their personalized needs.

This tire-buying recommendation technology begins with Discount Tire’s testing facility called Treadwell Research Park, where the company tests a variety of tires to obtain information about how each tire performs under various conditions. It is important to note that Discount Tire is a retailer – not a manufacturer – of tires, so all their testing data is as an objective third party. All of that data helps power Treadwell.

In addition to its testing facility, Discount Tire utilizes data from millions of tire safety inspections conducted yearly at its 1,200 store locations across the U.S. That data is incorporated into Treadwell and accounts for the geographic differences in driving conditions, how and where consumers drive most frequently (e.g. if you’re a city or highway driver), and more. Using mobile devices with laser technology to scan the tread depth and track how old the tire is helps make more accurate predictions of the right tire for a specific driver in Treadwell.