Winter tire changeover checklist
13 things, in the order they happen, for an independent shop running the fall changeover. No statistics and no torque figures — the spec is the manufacturer’s and the legal tread minimum is the law’s, and neither is ours to quote at you.
Before the first freeze
- Phone the stored sets firstYou know who has tires on your rack before they know they need them. Working down that list in September fills October with appointments instead of walk-ins, and the customers who take the early slots are the ones who would otherwise have rung on the first snowy morning.
- Check what is on the rack against what you think is thereCount the sets, and find the ones that are not where the book says. Doing it in a quiet week is ten minutes a shelf; doing it with a car on the hoist is the worst half hour of the season.
- Sort out the sets nobody has collectedLast spring’s abandoned sets are this autumn’s missing shelf space. Decide the rule — how long you hold a set, how you try to reach somebody, what happens then — and write it down before you need it.
- Print a label sheet and a few sparesWhatever you mark sets with, make sure it works before the week it matters. A label printer that has not been turned on since March is a label printer with a problem.
When the car comes in
- Find the stored set before the car is on the hoistNot after. A set that takes ten seconds to find costs nothing; a set nobody can find costs the bay, the appointment behind it, and the conversation at the counter.
- Read the tread on all four, and write it downBoth sets — the one coming off and the one going on. It is the only measurement that exists, it takes a minute, and in April it is the difference between a conversation and an argument. Ontario’s minimum legal tread depth is the law’s number, not ours: look it up and hold to it.
- Check the date code on anything that looks oldThe four digits on the sidewall are the week and the year it was made. A tire with tread left and ten years on it is still a tire you should be talking to the customer about, and the code is the part of that conversation nobody can argue with.
- Look at the valve stems and the sensorsA stem is a two-dollar part and a flat tire in February. If the set runs sensors, check they are alive before the wheel goes back on — the time to find a dead one is while the wheel is in your hand.
- Torque to the manufacturer’s spec, and say the re-torque out loudUse the figure for that vehicle, with a torque wrench, in a star pattern — never the gun. Then tell the customer to come back and have them re-checked after the first short drive, and write the reminder on the invoice. The ones who do not come back are the ones who were only told once.
Before the car leaves
- Bag and label the set coming offFour bags, one label, on the tire and not on the bag. A bag gets replaced and a label on it goes in the bin with it.
- Put it away where the record says it isThe shelf, the slot, the pile — and recorded as you put it there, not from memory at the end of the day. Every set that gets filed from memory is a set somebody will look for twice.
- Charge the storage on the same invoiceThe changeover invoice is the one invoice of the season the customer is expecting. Storage billed later is storage chased later, and some of it is never collected at all.
- Book the spring swap now, if they willThey are standing at your counter with their calendar open. It will never be this easy again.
Two things to do before the season starts
Both are free, and neither needs an account.
And if the finding part is the problem
Treadstock is what the first item on this list looks like when it takes ten seconds instead of half an hour.