Frédéric Baroin
Global Head of Automotive Business at Anyline
Reviewed by:
Valentyna Zhuk
Marketing Communications Manager
Business intelligence in automotive service often breaks at moments like this, long before anyone opens a dashboard. Reports, forecasts, and AI tools can only use the records that your service lane produces. For tire sales, two of those records matter most: which car it is, and how much tread is left on it.
What is business intelligence in the automotive industry?
Business intelligence in the automotive industry is the use of company data to decide what to stock, how to staff, what to charge, and whom to call. Carmakers apply it to production lines and connected cars. In service and tire retail, it draws on five kinds of records. Three describe the past, and two let you see what comes next.
| Data source | What it tells you | What it leaves out |
|---|---|---|
| Invoices and point of sale | What sold, at what price and margin | The tires that you measured and did not sell |
| Inventory | What is on the shelf and how fast it moves | Which sizes your customers will need next |
| Website and quote requests | What shoppers looked for | The condition of the tires on their car |
| Vehicle identification (VIN, plate, odometer) | Which car visited and how far it has driven | Little on its own. It is the key that joins every other record |
| Tire inspection | Tread depth per wheel position, tire size, tire age | What the customer paid, until it is joined to the invoice |
Why does vehicle identification decide whether the data adds up?
Each service record is filed under a car, so the VIN or plate read at check-in decides whether today’s visit links to the last one. One wrong letter or digit creates a second car. Your retention report then counts a loyal customer as lost, and the tread history splits in two. The tire that your customer put off last spring drops out of your follow-ups.
On cars built for the US market, the ninth VIN character is a check digit. Federal rules say it is there to check that a VIN was copied correctly, so software can test each VIN before it saves the record. In Cox Automotive’s dealer inventory tools, Anyline reads VINs with accuracy above 99%.
File each inspection against the vehicle and each follow-up against the person. Tires stay with the car when it is sold or traded in, and the reminder should go to whoever owns it now.
What does tire inspection data add to business intelligence?
Inspection data adds the demand that has not reached your register yet. That matters more in a flat market. The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association expects replacement passenger tire shipments to fall 1.6% in 2026, to 218.3 million units. When the market stops growing, more of next year’s sales come from cars that already visit you.
During National Tire Safety Week 2026, TireBuddy inspections by shops across the US found 1 in 7 tires below 3/32 in. Each of those readings is a future sale with a car and a customer attached. Recorded the same way each time, inspection data answers four questions that sales data leaves open.
| Planning question | Fields you need | Decision it drives |
|---|---|---|
| When will this car need tires? | Tread per wheel position and the odometer, from two visits | When the reminder goes out |
| Which sizes should we stock? | Tire size and tread depth | Order quantities by size for the coming months |
| Which tires are aging out? | The full DOT code with its date | Age-based advice and recall lookups |
| Who should we call back? | The tire that the customer put off, the vehicle, and its current owner | The follow-up list |
Tire age needs the right sidewall. Federal rules require the full DOT code, with its week and year, on one side only. The other side may carry a short code with no date, so a reading from that side leaves tire age blank. The full code also lets you find recalled tires in your own records. That helps, because the NTSB’s 2015 tire safety study put tire recall completion at about 44% for 2009 to 2013.
Seasonal storage gives you this forecast months ahead. Tire Storage Solutions tracks more than 1.9 million stored tires for over 900 businesses, and dealers on its platform can now check tread with Anyline at intake. Each measured set is next season’s demand, listed by size, customer and car.
Dealers use these records for marketing too. André Ströttchen, BMW Dealership Manager at Autohaus Timmermanns, describes his setup:
Currently, we use the Anyline application at all service stations for recording tire data during wheel changes, as well as for continuous data collection during tire replacements and service work. This provides us with a large database which is then used by our parts sales department for targeted marketing.
Why do tire dashboards mislead across stores?
You can compare stores on a tire dashboard only when three things hold. Every car gets measured, every technician measures the same way, and every record lands on the right vehicle. Call them coverage, method and identity.
- Coverage. If technicians measure only the cars that look worn, their store reports a high share of tires due for replacement. A store that measures every car finds more tires in total and still looks weaker on that KPI. Check inspection coverage before you compare anything else.
- Method. One technician gauges the center groove, another the inner shoulder, and the gap between their stores partly reflects those habits. Keep the lowest reading on each tire with readings across the tread, since one groove can reach the limit first.
- Identity. Visits that miss their car’s record drop out of wear forecasts, follow-ups and approval KPIs. A count of duplicate vehicle records shows how often it happens.
CJ BMW, a New Zealand dealership that runs Anyline inside Fleetback, shows what strong coverage looks like. It reports that 95% of its inspection reports are completed and 90% of tire opportunities are found while the car is on site.
How is AI used in automotive service and tire retail?
In the service lane, the main job of AI is reading. A phone camera captures tread, sidewall markings, VINs and plates, and the software reads each one the same way at every car. That work splits into three jobs.
- Identification reads a value that already exists, such as a VIN, plate, tire size or DOT code. The result can be checked, and this is the one place where speed is a fair claim.
- Measurement has no answer key, so the method carries the result. TireBuddy samples around 100,000 points per tire, with precision down to 0.5 mm.
- Condition is what a reading says about the tire and the car. TireBuddy records the wear, and your technician decides whether it calls for a rotation, an alignment check or new tires.
The forecast itself is the easy part. Once the same car has two readings taken the same way, plus the odometer each time, a wear rate is simple math. The hard part is getting those readings at every car, in every store, from every technician. AI-powered inspection pays off at that step. In 2025, Anyline passed 100 million digital tire inspections worldwide.
Which KPIs should a tire and service business track?
Track the usual sales KPIs plus five that only inspection and vehicle ID data can produce. The first group covers the counter, and the second shows how much of the work in your bays you won.
| KPI | What it shows | Data it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Car count | Vehicles serviced per day or week | Shop management system |
| Average repair order | Revenue per visit | Point of sale |
| Gross profit per tire | Margin by brand and size | Point of sale and cost data |
| Inventory turns by size | How fast each size sells through | Inventory system |
| Inspection coverage | Share of vehicles with all four tires recorded | Inspection records |
| Duplicate vehicle records | How often visits miss their vehicle history | VIN and plate records |
| Tire opportunity rate | Share of inspected tires at or below your replacement point | Inspection records |
| Same-visit approval rate | Share of recommended tires approved that day | Inspection records joined to invoices |
| Deferred-tire conversion | Share of “not yet” tires later replaced at your store | Inspection history joined to invoices |
Where does Anyline fit in automotive business intelligence?
Anyline supplies the inspection intelligence at the front of the stack. Its AI identifies the car and the tires and measures the tread, so every record starts complete and consistent. Your shop software and BI tools take it from there.
| Layer | Anyline’s part | Your systems’ part |
|---|---|---|
| Identify | Reads the VIN, plate, odometer, tire size and DOT code with a phone or tablet camera | Matches the car to your customer and vehicle records |
| Measure | Tread depth across the width of each tire, by wheel position | Applies your replacement point and pricing |
| Record | A visual report for the customer by email, SMS or print, stored against the vehicle | Keeps the history in your DVI, DMS, storage or shop system |
| Analyze | Tire & Vehicle Analytics dashboards | Your BI tool or management reports |
TireBuddy comes in two forms. The TireBuddy App runs on its own on a supported phone or tablet, with no integration work. Each inspection becomes a report that the customer can see, and the stored reports build the service history behind your forecasts.
The TireBuddy ToolKit is an SDK with modules for tread, sidewall, VIN, odometer and plate, built into software that you already run. Fleetback, BOLT ON Technology and Tire Storage Solutions build it into their tools, and the integration partners page lists the rest.
If you want the dashboard from Anyline too, Tire & Vehicle Analytics turns captured tire and vehicle data into heatmaps, charts and reports. It flags tires subject to recall and compares groups across locations.
Michelin, Discount Tire, Continental and NAPA are among the companies that trust Anyline, which has built AI-powered capture and inspection technology for more than ten years.
The TireBuddy App
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Frequently asked questions
What is business intelligence in the automotive industry?
How is AI being used in the automotive industry?
Which KPIs should a tire shop track?
What tire and vehicle data should a shop record at every inspection?
Does TireBuddy work with existing shop software?
About the Author
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Valentyna Zhuk
Marketing Communications Manager
Valentyna Zhuk is Marketing Communications Manager at Anyline, where she leads press and content communications for the company's AI products, with a primary focus on automotive. She works closely with Anyline's product team to explain how the technology works in practice for the businesses that use it, including tire retailers and dealerships. She brings nearly two decades of international brand and marketing leadership to the role. Her articles cover the practical use of AI in the automotive industry.
