I asked around a few of my friends that are car people. Jaspreet from Telsa recommended Nokians which was a brand I wasn’t familiar with.
I really wanted to get winter tyres quickly - my insurance was conditional on having them and I didn’t want to risk damaging my new car in the first week. I hadn’t anticipated my car coming so early - the pessimist in me was thinking February since the car was scheduled to arrive in January.
I tried out Canadian Tyre and on their suggestion Cosco - I received friendly service at both places - both were going to have to order the tyres in - with Costco it was going to be mid January. I learned a fair bit from conversations I had at both places.
I decided to look at the Nokian website and from there I found Kal Tires. I checked the google reviews (from talking with my friend Jordan who recommended checking this information). The reviews included some people with high end cars so I felt I could trust this location.
I rang them, I got to talk to a guy called “Tric” who was very friendly and helpful. So I went in - I had a photo of my tyres - an idea I got from a previous conversation with the guy I spoke to at Canadian Tyre (Jaspreet also recommended them).
I got a really good vibe about the store - it was quiet yet very clean and professional. Due to supply chain issues it wasn’t possible to get Nokians. Tric told me that Nokian invented snow tyres.
Apparently this is true! At least according to Google:
Snow tires were invented by Nokian in 1934 for handling the incredibly bad weather in Finland. I’ll have to mention that to my friends in Tieto! (Tieto are a large Finnish IT company that do most of the electronic medical record systems in Finland.
At this point I felt trust in Kal Tires and they were able to get my tyres in within a couple of days - I got Vikings or something? At this point I had enough conversations to think that a winter tyre is a winter tyre and I could trust Kal Tyre to give me a good one.
I also got Kal Tyre to do my safety inspection on my 2012 Volkswagen Tiguan since I was giving that to my friend Derek. All in all happy with outcome!