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As of Nov. 14, 2025 — Distribution Stox has moved its Greater Toronto Area base into a new 280,000-square-foot distribution center in Vaughan, Ontario, a warehouse the company officially unveiled at an Oct. 1 grand opening attended by suppliers, industry representatives and employees. The Unimax-owned distributor says the facility, which takes over from an earlier operation in Brampton, is already expanding the amount of tire and wheel inventory it can hold for the GTA. It also acts as a replenishment source for Distribution Stox's other Ontario depots in Barrie, Belleville and Sudbury.
From Brampton to Vaughan
The move was driven by necessity. Mark Pereira, Vice-President of Sales for Ontario and National Key Accounts at Unimax, said the Brampton site had reached its limits, leaving the company without enough room to stock the range of product the region required. With demand in the GTA still climbing, Distribution Stox needed more storage capacity, more picking space and better staging areas for outgoing orders.
"It's a major upgrade in how we service our customers and how we work with manufacturers," Pereira said.
Vaughan offered what Brampton could not. The city, which sits on Toronto's northern edge, has become one of the GTA's most active industrial and logistics sub-markets, with large-format warehouses lining the Highways 400 and 407 corridors. For a distributor whose business depends on moving product from rack to truck quickly, the new location puts it close to the region's busiest freight routes.
Distribution Stox is working under the banner "We're Picking Up Speed in Ontario," a slogan that nods to the building's purpose: faster, more reliable delivery for customers across the province. The company is marking its 10th anniversary this year, and the Vaughan project ranks among the most significant investments Unimax has made in Ontario.
Vaughan's industrial market has attracted logistics operators and wholesale distributors for years, drawn by the same combination of highway access and proximity to downtown Toronto. For a tire and wheel distributor, that concentration matters: it shortens the final leg of many deliveries and makes it easier to reach customers across the western and northern parts of the GTA.
A bigger warehouse, a deeper inventory
Distribution Stox's network spans 29 distribution centers across Canada, supported by a fleet of more than 250 delivery trucks. The new Vaughan facility is one of the largest sites in that network, and it gives the company room to change how it stocks the GTA.
Pereira said the additional space allows Distribution Stox to carry much more inventory targeted at the Toronto-area market, including specialty tires and wheels that dealers and repair shops need on short notice. Because the site holds more product than the Brampton building could, it also serves as a supply point for the company's other Ontario locations in Barrie, Belleville and Sudbury.
"We're able to carry so much more inventory in Vaughan and all the specialty product that the GTA market demands," Pereira said.
The fleet is a key part of the service equation. Across the GTA, delivery frequency is what customers feel most directly: a shop that orders a tire in the morning wants it before closing time, not next week. Having a 280,000-square-foot building to stage that work, instead of a cramped Brampton facility, gives drivers and warehouse crews room to be faster.
Wheels move closer to customers
Wheel distribution is a major reason the company needed the new center. Unimax acquired Macpek's RSSW wheel division in April 2025, and Vaughan has become one of three RSSW hubs, joining Quebec City and Edmonton.
Before the acquisition, wheels heading to the GTA generally came from Quebec, which made same-day and next-day delivery promises difficult to keep. With RSSW inventory now stocked in Vaughan, those turnaround times are available to customers across the GTA. For dealerships and independent shops, that speed matters: wheel orders are often urgent, tied to a customer waiting on a repair or a vehicle parked on a lot.
Having tires and wheels in the same building also simplifies the process for customers who source both from Distribution Stox. One warehouse, one delivery, one invoice. The acquisition also aligns with a broader industry trend toward larger wheel diameters and more specialty fitments, which has made wheel distribution a more complex, higher-value business.
A North American perspective
The Vaughan opening is a Canadian story, but its implications reach across the border. Ontario is Canada's most populous province and the country's largest vehicle market, making the GTA a key node in North American tire and wheel distribution. The brands on the company's roster — Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear, Hankook, Michelin, Nexen, Pirelli, Sailun, Toyo and Yokohama — are equally familiar names in the US aftermarket.
The warehouse also sits within a few hours' drive of major US border crossings in New York and Michigan, tying it into the cross-border freight network that moves tires, wheels and aftermarket parts in both directions. For US-based suppliers tracking distribution trends in Canada, the facility is a signal that service expectations north of the border are converging with those in the United States.
The timing is notable. Independent tire dealers across North America have been trimming their supplier lists, favoring distributors who can handle both tires and wheels and who carry enough inventory to back up delivery promises. Distribution Stox's expansion suggests the same pressures that reshaped US distribution are now playing out in Canada.
Pereira put the investment in competitive terms. "If you want to be a serious player in the Ontario market and in the national landscape, you need to have this," he said. "It's what the customers expect and demand."
Serving the whole automotive market
Distribution Stox's customer base spans dealership groups, original equipment manufacturers and independent repair facilities. The company's pitch is straightforward: every automotive business buys and sells wheels and tires, so Distribution Stox wants to be the supplier behind those transactions.
"If you buy and sell wheels, we buy and sell them to you," Pereira said. "We want to make sure every business in the automotive sector has access to wheels and tires from us."
Independent repair shops, in particular, depend on multiple daily deliveries because they rarely have space to store large inventories on their own premises. Faster replenishment from a nearby warehouse directly affects how much work those shops can turn around in a day.
Maxime-Olivier Gauthier, Unimax's Vice-President of Marketing and Communications, told guests at the grand opening that the building is more than a warehouse. "This facility represents just another milestone for us," he said. Gauthier added that Unimax has kept investing in Ontario because the company is confident in the market's long-term potential.
Delivering on the promise
The practical results of the Vaughan center are straightforward: more inventory, closer to customers, with faster delivery windows. For tires, that means fewer out-of-stock situations. For wheels, it means same-day or next-day fulfillment on GTA orders — a level of service that was hard to guarantee when product had to cross the provincial line from Quebec.
The bigger message to the Canadian aftermarket is that scale is now a competitive requirement. As distributors consolidate and customers raise the bar on fill rates and delivery times, a warehouse of this size has become part of the cost of doing business at the top tier of the market.
The next pressure test will come with winter tire changeover season, when demand spikes and warehouses are pushed hardest. The extra space in Vaughan gives Distribution Stox far more flexibility to manage those surges than it ever had in Brampton.
Pereira put it plainly: "We have to have the inventory on hand, and you're only able to do that by investing in something of this size and scale."
Distribution Stox has made that investment. Now the test is delivering on it, one route at a time.
