It’s again this time of the year that we need to change tires on our cars. If your tires are all good from the previous year, just go to your mechanic and change them if your hubby does not enjoying spending a couple of hours changing the tires by himself. If it’s time to buy winter tires, approach this relatively expensive activity intelligently. Look at it from different angles: the initial investment and long-term benefits or flaws. See these three options that can help you make the right decision about winter tires.
Option #1: Buy used winter tires
Winter tires are usually good for 60,000-100,000 kilometers or 4-5 winters. So if you buy used winter tires from Craiglist or Kijiji you may save up to 40-50% of the original cost of the tires. The only drawback is that you may be buying a cat in the bag. If you are not a tire specialist, you cannot say how long the tire has been used for by doing a simple visual inspection of the winter tire. Sellers on Kijiji tend to hide some small details like that the tires were used for two winters instead of the announced “one-winter”. No seller will provide you with the accurate number of kilometers that the tire ran. $300 that you dish out for 4 winter tires may be good for 1-2 winters more. A real saver? Yes, but it’s really short-term.
