No, that is not a joke.
Apparently Bridgestone has been making a lot of money by operating its Firestone Service Centers, and now will make a whole lot more money by adding Pep Boys stores to its portfolio. If nothing else, they will be able to sell a lot more tires.
There are many more Firestone Service centers (selling Bridgestone products) where I live than Pep Boys. Pep boys seems to do more service than parts sales at their location in my observation but they sell mostly junk parts. I only use them for cheap oil and chemicals.
There must be markets served by Pep Boys in which Firestone Service is under represented.
In my neck of the woods, I would say that there are more Pep Boys locations than there are Firestone locations, but that may be a function of being fairly close to their base of operations. I only patronize PB for things like car wax and wiper blades, and would not use either PB or Firestone for service/repairs.
I expect the first order of the day will be some layoffs and wage slashing due to revamped policies.
Pep Boys at 15 bucks a share. Have you ever looked at AutoZone shares? Their stock price has skyrocketed over the last 5 years and has been over 700 bucks for quite a while.
I suppose the future is bright for snake oil chemicals, decals, and chrome widgets… 
“In my neck of the woods, I would say that there are more Pep Boys locations than there are Firestone locations,…”
I have an Advance and a Car Quest only a half hour away. In my neck of the woods, we have no Bridgestone or Pep Boys locations. I suppose if I drove for a couple hours I could get to a Firestone store, but Pep Boys?
I’ve Never been in one and I’ve never seen one within a several hours drive. I do have a couple local tire dealers that sell Bridgestone tires, though.
CSA
I have an Advance and a Car Quest only a half hour away
“Only” half an hour? Where do you live that services are half an hour away. Must be pretty rural.
In this area there is a large Pep Boys superstore right across the street from a Firestone Complete Auto Care. Wonder which one will stay open?
There’s this corner in Salem NH…that has a Pep-Boys, Advance Auto and ADAP.
I’ll buy wax from them.
I actually liked Firestone service, when there was one nearby me. They since shut it down.
I had a dead battery one July 4th morning, and they replaced it in an hour.
I wonder if they’ll keep the Pep Boys name? Pep Boys - Manny, Moe, & Jack dates back to the 1920’s if memory serves. Personally, I learned a long time ago to avoid chain shops and take my vehicles to a local independent garage, so this has no effect on me. I enjoy looking at the little scooters / mopeds at Pep Boys, but I’m too old to buy one and go out an break my leg (or neck).
I think @ok4450 is spot on:" I expect the first order of the day will be some layoffs and wage slashing due to revamped policies" I have yet to hear about any merger / takeover that resulted in more jobs / higher wages.
“I wonder if they’ll keep the Pep Boys name? Pep Boys - Manny, Moe, & Jack dates back to the 1920’s”
One of the articles that I read made mention of a name change for some PB locations, but it didn’t mention what the new name would be.
Yes, I believe that the name does date back to the '20s, and here is a bit of trivia for you: The “Jack” in their trademark is Jack Strauss. In addition to being one of the three founders of Pep Boys, he owned Strauss Stores, a regional chain of auto parts stores that disappeared a few years ago.
Yeah, if I were on the board, there’d be a name change. I hope they didn’t pay much for the goodwill of the name since its more of a liability.
We have one Pep Boys and one Firestone in the area. The PB is a bit far. Before I moved here, there was a PB nearby that had good mechanics, they used to own their business but moved to PB for the hassle factor and benefits. You could go talk to them (as opposed to the service writer) and they will figure it out.
In my new place, I kept going back to PB for tires since mine were still under warranty. Until my last visit when they could not understand that I want my newer tire to replace the worn, full size spare tire and a new tire to be installed on the spare rim and rotated to the active 4 tires. I figured this was pretty easy to comprehend and lost my trust in them being able to trouble shoot anything more serious than a dead battery.
The Firestone is okay for tires and maybe alignment. They are not very pushy-at least with me.
Pep Boys started in Philadelphia, and would naturally have most of their stores on the East Coast, especially the Mid-Atlantic area. We have both Firestione and Pep Boys stores in Central Maryland. I’m not sure what level tires Firestone sells besides their own brand, but Pep Boys sells inexpensive tires as well as inexpensive parts and accessories. It seems to me that Bridgestone can cover the higher end of tire market with Firestone and the low end with Pep Boys. Maybe Bridgestone will buy into discount tire manufacturers in Asia if they haven’t already in a play for strong vertical integration.
“It seems to me that Bridgestone can cover the higher end of tire market with Firestone.”
Firestone tires are the low end of the tire marketplace for Bridgestone.
Maybe they’ll offer better prices on their tires. I wen there one time because they had a buy 3 get the 4th free sale. I could buy the EXACT same set of tires from Nashua Wholesale Tires at their FULL price for about $100 LESS then Pep-Boys so-called sale price.
Makes good business sense anyway. Consolidation reduces competition, prices and profits go up.
Makes good business sense anyway. Consolidation reduces competition, prices and profits go up.
Actually saturation reduces competition. Many companies do this.
There’s this huge mall in NY my nephew works at. The mall has 4 different toy stores. Yet they are all owned by the same company. You think you are being offered choices…but you’re not. There are also 3 different sport shoe stores…but again they all have the same parent company.
KMart nor Sears changed their name when they merged.
and in other news…Walgreens is buying Rite-Aide. I’ll guess that in the next century…one large company will own all the others.
I’ll guess that in the next century…one large company will own all the others.
Until either the business geniuses determine that spinning off the brand is more beneficial to their yearly bonuses or the entire company fails because it is too big to manage effectively and bankruptcy spins off the brands…
This year’s mergers and aquisitions become next year’s strategic spin-offs! 
This year's mergers and aquisitions become next year's strategic spin-offs!
And unfortunately that doesn’t always work out for the best. I can show you several examples where a company was taken over for it’s resources. Then after it was used up…they spun it off on nit’s own again…and shortly after the company went out of business.