Snow tires in Canada

The tires have been used for 3-4 winters but as I said very sparingly. Probably little to no highway. I'll see about measuring the tread depths.

Nexus 5 ?

 

I brought a toonie up to one of the tires and tried the "toonie test". The tire tread covers the nickel outer ring of the toonie and just about the polar bear's nose. By my math that's right around 8/32". So I guess they are not quite as mint condition as I thought. They'd survive at least one winter or two I'm sure. And maybe next year I'll have actual income.

 

Made an appointment with Tires23. They say that the rims come out to $220 and then after swapping and installation $280. If I opt for storage that's $100 which would also cover the cost of swapping back in the spring.

Base model (C1/C2) comes with steel wheels right? Cause they were saying on the phone if I had alloy wheels they'd also need to get me a set of lugs. But even if I did need a set of lugs I think the ones on my grandmother's Corolla wheels are the right size just in the wrong pattern.

 

The Canadian base model, which is what I have, is the C2. So if that comes with steel rims, then I have steel rims.

My grandmother's tires were mounted on a Corolla which has 5 bolt rims. Prius C has 4 bolt rims. So actually there's 4 more than I need

Nexus 7 ?

 

Wait, no, I erred: she doesn't have a second set of bolts on these tires, presumably because her stock rims are steel too.

Nexus 7 ?

 

OK they're on! Yup they were able to use the existing lugs.

I am impressed at the price I got from Tires23. The original quote was $280. I expected this to be before tax but in fact it is after tax. The rims alone were $220 after tax which comes out to under $50 each before tax. Just to compare, some places were quoting me $70/rim before tax. Then $100 after tax for storage and next season's switchover.

I guess I can do cheaper than that for storage and switchover but I'll see where I'm living next season.

On the drive home I was glancing at the dashboard thinking, hey, isn't there supposed to be a warning light for tire pressure? Did they move over my sensors without telling me? And then as I turned onto my street I noticed, ha, that I didn't see the warning light because it was behind my mounted phone I was using for GPS.

As for the speedometer - once I got onto the highway I spent a minute or two on cruise control at 100 km/h (which required getting into the express lanes due to prevailing speeds being a bit low at that time of day) and monitored my GPS. When the speedometer read 100, the GPS speed flickered between 100-101. So it looks like I'm close enough to ignore the difference.

 

Hmm maybe a short communication distance would explain why I didn't see the light when I left the shop, as I was departing from the shop where they're stored. But I doubt there'd be communication over km distances.

Nexus 5 ?

 

Indeed that's what I have now. Forecast says possible snow later this week and I'm kinda curious to see how they hold up.

Nexus 5 ?

 

So far so good in the snow. There's something very satisfying about crunching through snow without a hint of trouble.

Nexus 7 ?

 

On the other hand, I learned the hard way that if I don't brush fresh snowfall off my windshield regularly (when not using the car) my wipers will freeze and become a hassle to free.

Nexus 5 ?