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TIA TPMS Town Hall says consumer education will eradicate complaints
Panelists, from l., Bartec CEO Scot
Holloway, Dill Air Controls; General
Manager Brian Rigney, Continental
Automotive Systems; Jean-Christophe
Deniau, Ph.D.; and 31 Inc. Marketing
Manager John Rice discuss the
effectiveness of public education for
TPMS.
by Daniel Buxbaum
Las Vegas—The Global Tire Expo —
Powered by TIA hosted a TIA TPMS
Town Hall meeting that provided a
targeted approach for educating shop
owners, technicians and consumers with
proper information regarding TPMS
systems before, during and after the sale,
Oct. 30, at SEMA.
Sean MacKinnon, the Tire Industry
Association (TIA)’s director of
automotive training development,
moderated a panel that included TPMS
manufacturer representatives from
Continental Automotive Systems US,
Schrader Electronics, Bartec USA, and
TRW, among others.
Panelist Brian Rigney, general manager
of Dill Air Controls, said that proper
technician training can and should be
passed along to the consumer.
“Dill offers training to not only
representatives and distributors, but also
to their customers in the field,” he said.
“We feel that providing training at the
technician level is ultimately what’s going
to help educate the consumer, and it will
also provide the technician with the tools
necessary to be successful.”
Jean-Christophe Deniau, Ph.D., of
Continental Automotive Systems US,
elaborated on the effectiveness of passing
learned information on to the consumer.
“Throughout the years, I have seen
complaints from a lot of drivers who say
they never had a problem with their tires
before TPMS,” he said. “For this reason,
shop training must be passed on to the
driver so that they can also understand
what signs to look for in a defective tire,
before it causes an issue.”
Ros Rodrigues, senior account manager
at TRW Automotive, said he feels that the
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consumer sees the tire installer as the
expert, and the installer should stand up to
the consumer’s
expectation.
“The turn-off is that if a
tire installer hasn’t been
trained, they don’t like to
field the blame for any
problems,” Rodrigues
said. “A properly trained
network, in the eyes of the
consumer, would be what they ultimately
want — to get their car fixed properly
Hoehn
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without the shop passing the blame along
to somebody else.”
MacKinnon also
addressed the panel
regarding its respective
companies’ efforts to make
clear and concise TPMS
information available to
the consumer. TIA, he
said, has been reaching out
to magazines and websites
around the country in an effort to provide
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Continued on page 12
Parts & People December 2012 Page 11