Protect your Rental Car Fleet from Tire Theft
Christian Stadlmann
CRO at Anyline
All industries face fraud and theft risks. The rental care industry is no different. It is common to find the wrong tires on a rented vehicle. How does that happen?
With secure rental lots, it may seem like this is not a problem. Yet, an opportunistic person may realize that it is easy enough to switch out their used, worn tires with those on the vehicle they rent from you. What’s more, your associates may not catch on. There are other organizations that do this on a large scale, stealing like-new tires and putting rental clients at risk. Tires are already one of the most expensive components of running a car rental business. With theft, these costs get even higher.
However, there are strategies you can use to minimize theft, and it all comes down to collecting the right data.
Data Collection
If your rental organization has tire information for each vehicle on hand, it can quickly verify that data. A human visual tire inspection is not always all that accurate, though, from one rental to the next. Most often, associates look for problems, not verifying if the tire was changed to another version.
The simple solution is to use a mobile data capture tool to check in or check out the tire, ensuring the same tire comes back to the lot. This technology allows you to capture all the data you need about the vehicle, including the VIN and license plate number. Then, a quick scan of the tire DOT allows you to verify at a moment’s notice if it’s the right tire for the vehicle.
Correlating VIN and DOT Data
Some fraudsters are very tricky and may even replace their worn tire with the same model and brand that is on the rented vehicle, making a visual inspection highly inaccurate. However, the Department of Transportation requires that tire manufacturers print a DOT code on every tire. This allows for every tire to have a very specific number that correlates with the plant and location of its manufacturer, size, brand, and date of production. These digits are indecipherable by consumers, but the data is easily transferred.
Consider the date that’s easy to pick up on in the DOT. The last four digits are the week and year the tire was made. For example, if a tire was produced on January 30, 2023, the last four digits would be 04 23.
It would be very difficult for a fraudster to find a tire that has the exact same data on the tire they are trying to swap out, creating a simple way to verify if that tire is, in fact, the same one.
Mobile Data Capture Options
Anyline helps companies to gather data quickly using a full suite of mobile data capture options. As a fleet manager in a rental company, you may realize the importance of being able to quickly and efficiently gather data like this. These solutions are being used by some of the largest tire retailers as well as industry manufacturers, and other car rental companies around the world.
Any camera-enabled mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet computer, can run the Anyline solutions. This then allows the user to scan the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), the license plate, the driver’s identification, the tire sidewall, and more at a moment’s notice. It can also be used to gather other data that you need for your fleet management, like the odometer reading, tread depth of the tires, and any and all barcodes associated with the work you do.
This method works very quickly, allowing the data to be picked up and collected in seconds, often hundreds of times faster than what a person can do when writing down the same information. This data is then digitally integrated into existing mobile and web applications and into your existing IT system. This makes it possible for car rental companies to quickly gather data to verify they still have the right tires on the right car.
