SUPPORTERS of the used tyre industry have painted a picture of themselves as a group of business people who have finally found the long searched-for “cure” for bad tyres on the Jamaican road by providing a cheaper product, and they are being vilified by the new tyre dealers who had been searching for this cure, having been in the business for a long time, but had failed to do so.

The Jamaican motoring consumer has had to suffer the impact of increases in the cost of commodities worldwide, tyres being no exception. The prices of tyres have been impacted by an increase in the cost of natural rubber and petroleum, two of the main components of tyres. The most popular-sized tyre used in Jamaica is a 175/70R13. The average cost to go into a new tyre establishment and take off your old tyres and replace one of these with a new tyre is $4,500 inclusive of GCT. This cost is prohibitive and so consumers have had to resort to alternatives.

The first one is not to change your tyres when they have reached the safe limit of 1.66 mm in tread depth. Wear them a little longer and pray that you do not get a blow-out.

The second alternative is to go to a tyre shop and search through tyres that a more discerning consumer, who has the purchasing power, has disposed of and hopefully find a tyre that fits on to your rim that has a little or a lot more treading than the tyres that you have on your vehicle, and barter with the “tyre man” as to how much you will pay for these. Our local supply of used tyres is very limited by virtue of our size and so, well-thinking business minds have sought to source these from larger markets, hence an imported used tyre industry has been born.

So, as a potential used tyre dealer how do we solve the problem of providing our consumers with cheaper products. These are the options:

(1) Import cheaper new tyres and sell them directly to the consumer.

(2) Import cheaper used tyres and sell them directly to the consumer.

(3) Import cheaper used tyres, retread them and then sell them to the consumers.

But let us see which of the three will be the cheapest. After researching the cost of new and used tyres overseas, I realise that a used tyre costs on the average 35 to 50 per cent less than a new tyre. Upon the tyres arriving at the ports in Jamaica, there are no duties charged on used tyres but new tyres attract a 25 per cent duty based on the cost of the tyre. So, at this stage there is a second cost advantage to used tyres – no duties, and therefore this is the cheaper alternative of the first two listed above.

But how do I get these cheaper duty-free used brand-name tyres into the island? So I do my research at Jamaica Customs and the Bureau of Standards and realise that I have run into a road block — even though there are operating standards in place for the importation of new tyres, there are no such standards for used passenger tyres, and so I realise that I will not be able to customs clear the used tyres that I have already imported.

But then I start to explore the third alternative and ask how it is that retreaders are able to import used tyres? I do a little more digging and this has led me to realise that all I need to do at customs is to falsely declare these used passenger tyres, as if I have all intentions to retread these goods before selling them to the consumer. But before I go any further I ask myself, why not retread the used passenger tyre? And I get the answer –

(a) I do not have access to or own a tyre retreading plant.

(b) Having acquired or given access to a tyre retreading plant, the cost of the retreaded tyre would be too high and I will not be able to sell it at a significant profit.

So I abandon the idea of retreading the passenger tyre.

But then, as I am about to clear them from the wharf, the Bureau holds on to my containers of used passenger tyres, as it is only used commercial type tyres that are allowed to be imported for retreading. I then appeal to the Ministry of Industry Investment and Commerce (MIIC) that a group of us brought in some used brand-name tyres to sell to the Jamaican motorists who cannot afford the expensive new tyres and the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) is not allowing me to clear them and the ports are being clogged up. Our appeal is answered. The BSJ uses the standards that are used in Trinidad to inspect our tyres and the authorities “fly the gate” on our containers and alas, the need for cheaper tyres has been fulfilled.

So, I place these tyres on my open business lot out in the hot Jamaican sun and price them at about 65 per cent of the cost of a new tyre. The consumers flood in and clean up these brand-name tyres that look great on the outside and have more treading than the tread-bare ones with wires exposed that they have on their vehicles now.

The BSJ calls a meeting of all stakeholders in the used tyre industry and puts forward a plan to arrive at a set of standards for the importation of used tyres. Remember, this is happening after several containers of used passenger tyres have been cleared. The committee is formed from a wide cross-section, including used tyre dealers, new tyre dealers, technical officers of the bureau and representatives of pertinent government bodies such as NSWMA, The Road Safety Unit of the Ministry of Industry (MOT) and NEPA.

This committee is charged with creating standards that will facilitate trade and ensure safety of the Jamaican consumers. During the course of meetings and drafting of the standards, more used tyre containers have been brought in and have been cleared, even though it is still illegal to import used passenger tyres for direct sale to the consumer. Further, the used tyre dealers have now started to offer used commercial type tyres for sale directly to the consumer, without retreading.

Eventually a draft of the used tyre standards is arrived at and there is an outcry from the used tyre dealers that certain aspects of the standards have been set too high – a tread depth of 6mm and an age of 36 months in particular. Fact – new tyres have a tread depth of 8mm, the safe operating limit is 1.66mm of tread depth and tyre manufacturers recommend that tyres are not to be sold beyond five years and should not be worn beyond six years, from the date of manufacture, as the integrity of the tyre components cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, the standards of a 6mm tread depth and an age of 36 months would only be to the financial and safety benefit of the consumer and to the loss, albeit, financial, of a used tyre importer. These two parameters in particular would allow consumers to get 65 per cent of the wear of a new tyre over a two-to-three-year period.

Is this really a cheaper product?

The used tyre dealers and their supporters have suggested that the new tyre dealers feel threatened that new persons are imposing on their market. On the contrary, new tyre dealers have suggested to the MIIC to lower the duties on new tyres so that any business-minded person who has the desire to make money and supply a product to a market that has expressed a demand is free to do so. Currently, there is no existing or proposed licensing of new tyre dealers. Therefore, despite the impression being given in articles published that the new tyre dealers are trying to hold on to the market for themselves, it is a much more open, fair and free industry to venture into than the existing and proposed used tyre industry.

It must be made manifestly clear that all current importers of used tyres who have been selling to the unsuspecting public have been acting contrary to the law. Suddenly they want to be seen not as greedy businessmen who operate contrary to law but as saviours of the little man.

So, after all the truthful facts have been brought up from “under the table” into the light of the public domain, isn’t the best alternative to the Jamaican consumer lowering duties on new tyres to make them more affordable? This would eliminate the need for consumers to compromise safety by purchasing used tyres that have been sourced either locally or overseas and we would even be able to export the used tyres that are generated here by the container loads.