CHICAGO — CarAdvise L.L.C., an online vehicle maintenance and repair marketplace platform, has added a tire shopping component to the platform's range of services.
The CarAdvise platform, which was launched in 2015, is designed to allow customers to compare prices for maintenance services at thousands of shops throughout North America.
With this added component, CarAdvise members can search numerous configurations of tires — sorting by weather, summer, all-season and winter tires, or by price, or many other sorting styles, the Chicago-based company said.
"CarAdvise is constantly driving forward, continually innovating, and creating new features that will benefit our 500,000+ members," Greg Tepas, founder and CEO, said.
"While online tire shopping sites have been around for years, CarAdvise is the first of its kind to combine online tire buying with maintenance and repair — a very natural fit," he said.
"Our customers have been asking for this capability, and we are pleased to provide a truly innovative way to shop for both tires and maintenance at the same time."
In addition to shopping by price, customers using the platform can compare tires side-by-side for easy analysis and making solid buying decisions, CarAdvise said.
The platform also provides customers with a list of shops in their area for booking an installation appointment.
Lastly, the user's location is linked to local inventory and when a tire installation is booked, the tire is guaranteed to be at the shop of choice for the appointment times showing in their system, usually within 24 hours.
CarAdvise noted the tire shopping option is still a "beta" version, but said it plans to expand partnerships in this area and is looking at ways to leverage information gleaned from this avenue to develop predictive tire replacement schedules. This will help CarAdvise users budget and time their purchases better.
This product expansion follows announcements earlier this year that CarAdvise had linked up with Les Schwab Tire Centers and Discount Tire/America's Tire.
Other major retail tire and auto repair networks that are listed as part of the CarAdvise network include Firestone Complete Auto Care (and Firestone's Tires Plus and Wheel Works associated stores), TBC Corp.'s NTB and Tire Kingdom chains, Icahn Automotive's Pep Boys and AAMCO networks, Sears Auto Centers and Meineke Car Care Centers.
CarAdvise advertises that customers save on average 15% to 40% versus retail price for services, depending on the shop, service and type of vehicle. CarAdvise guarantees that the cost of services procured through its platform are lower than retail prices available directly.
