Small Business Stories - Kleen Wheels

Ivy Hartman: Welcome to SBTV.com. It's coverage of the 2008 SEMA Show here in Las Vegas, and with me is the president of Kleen Wheels, Mr. David Weinberg. Welcome to SBTV.com. David Weinberg: Thank you for having me. Ivy Hartman: Absolutely, tell us what Kleen Wheels are or does? David Weinberg: Well, Kleen Wheels is a product that keeps the black brake dust, the ugly nuisance brake dust off of your nice shiny alloy wheels, an outside hubcap going in the front of the car. We come up with this dust shield which is nothing more than an inside hub cap, and we put it inside the wheel, and that provides a barrier so that the brake dust can't go out on to the outside of the wheel. These come in matte black; you don't even notice that they are there. Ivy Hartman: Wow! David Weinberg: They are made out of aluminum, they are very light weight. They dissipate the heat, because aluminum is an excellent conductor of heat and it actually enhances the brake cooling. Our product, when it's between the hub of the wheel in the hub of the car, actually acts as a heat sink, technical word, meaning that when you bolt two pieces of metal together, they act in concert to allow the heat to become dissipated by additional surface area. So the fins on the radiator in your car, the fins on the radiator in your compartment shield, all those fins are and all those radiators are nothing more than additional surface area to help dissipate the heat, and that's how we do it. We give you an inside hubcap that goes behind the wheel to keep the black brake dust from flowing out on to the wheel. Ivy Hartman: Is it a patented technology that you guys came up with? David Weinberg: Yes, it is patented. Ivy Hartman: And talk about -- take us through the history of the company, starting it up to till now, shortly a brief one. David Weinberg: Well, actually it's started by who fellow worked in a dealership that actually was a Mercedes dealership, and he started up by having an idea to keep the black brake dust, keep so -- honestly, pipe-ends and fashion the pipe-ends to fit in the wheel to block the brake dust going on out of the wheel. He was working in a service department and he started selling a lot of them to the customers, and the owner of the dealership said, you can't be doing this. I want to be your partner and he quit and he went out and he became an independent businessman, and started selling this and it became a commodity item. Ivy Hartman: And that was over about two decades ago? David Weinberg: That was above 30 to 35 years ago. Ivy Hartman: Really, that's fabulous. How long you've been coming to SEMA? David Weinberg: Actually, this is I think my 19th year, and we've been watching this thing grow and become successful. We look forward to it every year. Ivy Hartman: What kind of objectives do you have when you come or are there ways you prepare for the SEMA Show that you might want to share with our viewers? David Weinberg: Well, we incredibly have several categories. One of the categories is our good and existing customers that we always to see here. They come by and say, hello to us every year and we've talk about new and more exciting things, how we can grow our business together in partnership. We also meet of course the newer customers. You can never be too well known. There are people who have never even heard of our products and are constantly surprise to even know we exist. This is a great place to exhibit them, the crowd and even the crowd today it seems to be really, really exciting this morning. I must say we started out with a bang. Ivy Hartman: That's fabulous! David Weinberg: Yeah, lay down conditions, I think we're having a very nice turn-out here. We're excited already, and we've only been here two hours. Ivy Hartman: I know it's been a show -- It was just a kickoff day here at SEMA. Talk about the export business for Kleen Wheels. David Weinberg: Well, luckily our products, the way they fit here in this market is the same way that they appear in all over the world. So, a BMW or a Mercedes has the same wheels here as it does in Australia, as it does in Africa, as it does in England, so we do export all over the world. The same part numbers fit almost perfectly all around the world which is a lucky thing. So we have a number of export customers. Ivy Hartman: How is technology or innovation changed the face of the business over the last 20 years or so? David Weinberg: Well, at least in the terms of brake dust, you would think that the manufacturers would like to cure this problem. Actually, we know that it appears very highly on the consumer satisfaction index about the owners of the vehicle when they are asked, they complained bitterly about the brake dust on their vehicles as a very annoying, distracting part of the appearance of the vehicle. But I guess for economic causes the way the brake pads are made, the disc brake pads are made, they just probably don't want to sacrifice the convenience of the appearance, but the cost of changing the pad makeup. Ivy Hartman: To be honest with you unless you sold it to an OEM, you're probably in better shape by being able to sell it on the aftermarket. David Weinberg: We've done a lot of negotiating with OEMs, but I think the bottom -- these products, we have had them on and off OEM, on and off over the years. Ivy Hartman: Alright! David Weinberg: But I think the end result as I observed is maybe they have so many other problems that this is really down unnoticed. Ivy Hartman: Right. David Weinberg: And they got big problems everyday that they don't understand how important it is. Ivy Hartman: How important is it as a SEMA member to you to know about the new technical that's coming out so that you can manufacture and use as a change measure in terms of brake dust and brake pads, but --? David Weinberg: Well, we're on the model year information where we get a lot of information from SEMA about regulatory and administrative rulings, legal things that come up. So there is lot of common information that we need to know. Things like insurance, warranty, all kinds of things that we -- SEMA does a great job of keeping us abreast. The membership is at least as far as we're concerned, I look forward all the publications I received every line item. I'd like to know what's going on them. We're very satisfied. Ivy Hartman: Have you changed the business or the marketing aspect for Kleen Wheels in light of the recent economic terms or anything else change for your business wise? David Weinberg: Well, I think it's pretty much away to see right now. I will -- just going to shakeout that we're sitting here on Election Day. Ivy Hartman: I know it can be related to -- David Weinberg: It will be exciting. Ivy Hartman: I know. Back to our room tonight, hopefully we will know something. David Weinberg: I have got my fingers crossed, but I won't tell you for whom. Ivy Hartman: Alright! That's fine. We won't ask, we won't ask. Is there anything else you wanted to add about Kleen Wheels or SEMA Show that we talked about earlier? David Weinberg: No, we're really interested. We're very happy to be here and thank you for inviting me. We meet a lot of great new and exciting customers all the time. You would think as we get older and better at this, there is always a new startup companies or nice new young pleasant guys. The Internet is the one area that I think most of our customers are growing into. We see more and more of our sales being attributed to Internet sources. Sales in the Internet starting to take over the hard catalogs, the mailing, the pinning, the hard -- brick and mortar retail stores have tremendous overhead staffing. I think Internet distribution is probably going to be the way of the future and it definitely is now. Ivy Hartman: Perfectly, well said. Thanks for being here with us. David Weinberg of Kleen Wheels Corp. at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Thanks again. Keep it right here as we bring you all things automotive internationally here at SEMA Show 2008 in Las Vegas.