As fleet grows, Communauto navigates challenges of changing thousands of winter tires

With the deadline to equip vehicles with winter tires in Quebec fast approaching, car owners are rushing to book appointments with their mechanics.

The province requires all vehicles registered in Quebec to have winter tires installed by Dec. 1 for safety reasons. Winter tires can be removed by March 15.

The twice-a-year process can prove to be a slight headache for Quebecers.

But what happens if you have more than one vehicle? What if you have several thousands of them?

That’s the case with car-share company Communauto, which has a growing fleet of about roughly 5,000 vehicles – including 3,500 in Montreal alone.

“We’re in the blitz for putting all the winter ones before the deadline of the first of December,” said Patrick Darche, shop manager at the Monk Maintenance center for Communauto

“We have three months to visit all our cars and at the same time, we’re going to ask for the garage to do tires, cleanings and make sure that they are ready for winter. So addings, shovels, snow brushes, windshield washer fluid,” said Simon Rouleau-Mailloux, the principal fleet manager for Communauto.

Communauto begins blocking vehicles off at the beginning of July to make sure they aren’t reserved, and tire changes start at the end of August.

“Bringing back the cars, looking at the cars, doing tires mostly on it. But if something else needs to be done on the car since the wheels are off, like brake jobs or maintenance, windshield issues, everything that’s covering the car itself, we’re able to do it in the vicinity, here in the shop,” explained Darche.

The company Communauto mostly uses private garages but purchased its own workshop on Monk Boulevard last year.

“1,800 are done at our garage here. So this is the first year. So it’s our like first year that we have that many cars at the same time visiting the garage here,” said Rouleau-Mailloux.

Communauto aims to have all tire changes done by mid November. All of the tire changes are possible because of their hard-working team.  

“The guys are putting their heart into it really participating as unexpected work, teamwork and like I’m telling you that the days goes in a flash doing 40 cars a day,” said Darche.

And just a few months later, they get right back to work.

“We have to start again March 15 so in four months from now we have to take another appointment for all our cars so the team is starting beginning of January we’re taking all appointments for March,” explained Rouleau-Mailloux.