PEARSALL, Texas — Driver safety has been one of the pillars of the Discount Tire philosophy ever since industry legend Bruce Halle founded the dealership 64 years ago in Ann Arbor, Mich.
It's a safe bet, pun intended, that Halle, who died in early 2018, would be proud of his company's "safest" investment yet: Purchasing and renovating the one-time Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. testing facility near Pearsall — now called Treadwell Research Park — a 900-acre facility in southwest Texas, an hour drive south of San Antonio.
Reinalt-Thomas Corp., doing business primarily as Discount Tire and America's Tire, uses the sprawling facility to test an array of tires on various conditions — on mud, rocks, silt and sand, as well as well as in dry and wet conditions — not only to rate the product's performance and level of road noise, but also its ability to keep customers safe on any type of terrain.