Edmonton's Tire Shop Since 1987

Tire Shop in Edmonton — Repair, Mounting, Balancing & Seasonal Changeover

A & R Automotive has been working on tires at 2687 96 Street NW since 1987. Flat repairs, mounting and balancing, seasonal changeovers, winter tire storage, and the vibration nobody else could track down. We are AMVIC licensed, a NAPA AutoPro shop, and an AMA/CAA Approved Auto Repair Facility — which means the work is warrantied and somebody independent checks that we do it properly.

Most people find us because something has gone wrong on the way to work, or because it snowed and the winter tires are still stacked in the garage. Either way, call 780-468-3052 and we will tell you honestly whether it is a fifteen-minute fix or something that needs the car for the afternoon.

Tire Repair — Flats, Punctures and Slow Leaks

Most punctures in the tread can be repaired properly, and repair costs a fraction of replacement. What matters is whether the damage is repairable at all — and plenty of shops will not tell you the difference.

A nail in the middle of the tread is usually a straightforward fix. We demount the tire, inspect it from the inside, and install a combination patch-plug that seals the inner liner and fills the injury channel. A plug pushed in from the outside without removing the tire is not a permanent repair and we do not do them, because the only way to know a tire is safe is to look at the inside of it.

What cannot be repaired: sidewall damage, shoulder damage, punctures larger than roughly 6 mm, or a tire run flat long enough to destroy the inner liner. If yours falls into that group we will show you why rather than just telling you.

A slow leak with no visible nail is usually the valve stem, a corroded rim bead seat, or a TPMS sensor seal — all common on Edmonton vehicles after a few winters of road salt. We dunk-test to find it rather than guessing, and we can reseal a corroded bead rather than selling you a rim you do not need.

Flat repair runs $XX per tire and takes about thirty minutes. Walk in if you are losing air — we will get you in the same day wherever we can.

Tire Mounting and Balancing

Mounting is fitting the tire to the rim. Balancing corrects the weight distribution so the wheel spins true at highway speed. You need both done properly or you will feel it in the steering wheel at 100 km/h.

We mount and balance tires whether you bought them from us or brought them in yourself, on steel or alloy rims, and we torque every wheel to the manufacturer's specification with a torque wrench rather than an impact gun. Over-torqued wheels warp brake rotors, which is a far more expensive problem than the one you came in with.

If a vibration persists after a standard balance, the fix is usually a road force balance. It measures the tire and rim together as a loaded assembly and finds stiffness variations and rim runout that a conventional spin balancer cannot see. It is the difference between telling you the wheel is balanced and telling you why it still shakes.

Mount and balance is $XX per tire. Road force balancing is $XX. Bring your own tires and we will fit them at the same rate — we do not penalise you for buying elsewhere.

New Tires

We supply and install tires through our NAPA supplier network, which means we can get most major brands — Michelin, Goodyear, Bridgestone, Toyo, Nokian, Continental and others — usually within a day or two.

We are not a warehouse, and that is deliberate. We are not trying to move stock that is sitting on our floor, so the recommendation you get is based on how you actually drive rather than what we over-ordered last season. Tell us your commute, your budget and whether you tow anything, and we will quote two or three genuine options with the trade-offs explained.

Call 780-468-3052 for a quote on a specific size. Have the numbers off the sidewall ready — something like 225/65R17 — and we can price it while you are on the phone.

Seasonal Tire Changeover

Changeover season in Edmonton runs late October into November, and again through April and May. Those few weeks are when every shop in the city is full, so booking ahead is the difference between driving on winters and waiting a week.

If your winters are already on their own rims, changeover is a wheel swap and a re-torque — about thirty to forty-five minutes, and $XX. If the tires need to come off the rims and go back on, that is a full mount and balance on four wheels, closer to an hour and a half, at $XX. Tell us which when you book and we will give you an accurate time.

Book in early October for the winter swap and early April for the spring one. The people who call the week after the first real snowfall are the people waiting the longest.

We also re-torque your wheels free after any changeover. Wheel nuts settle in the first hundred kilometres and re-torquing is a five-minute job that prevents a serious one — bring it back in a week and we will do it while you wait, whether or not you paid us for the swap.

Winter Tires in Edmonton

Alberta has no law requiring winter tires. That surprises people, and it is worth saying plainly rather than implying otherwise to sell a service.

What is true is that the rubber compound in an all-season tire hardens below about 7°C and stops gripping properly, which describes most of an Edmonton winter. The difference in stopping distance on cold, dry pavement is significant before you even get to ice.

All-weather tires are a genuinely different category from all-season — they carry the three-peak mountain snowflake symbol and are rated for severe snow, so they are a reasonable single-set answer for drivers who do not want to swap twice a year. The trade-off is that they wear faster in summer and never quite match a dedicated winter tire in deep cold. We will tell you which makes sense for how you actually drive, including telling you to keep what you have if it is still good.

Winter Tire Storage

We store your off-season tires so you are not giving up a corner of the garage to four wheels for six months.

Storage runs $XX for the season, tires are kept indoors, and they are tagged to your vehicle so the right set comes out when you book your changeover. It also means you never arrive for a swap having forgotten to load the tires into the trunk — which happens more often than you would think.

Old Tire Disposal and Recycling

We take your old tires and route them into Alberta's tire recycling program, so you are not left with four of them behind the shed. There is a small per-tire environmental fee of $XX, which is the standard provincial recycling levy rather than a shop charge.

If you have tires to get rid of and nothing else to do, bring them by anyway. We would rather they went to the recycler than a back alley.

Why Edmonton Drivers Use A & R for Tires

Three things separate us from the tire counters: we are a full mechanical shop, we are independently accredited, and we have been at the same address since 1987.

Being a full repair shop matters more than it sounds. A vibration is not always the tires. It can be a wheel bearing, a bent rim from a pothole, a seized brake caliper or warped rotors. A tire-only shop will sell you a balance and send you away still shaking. We can find the actual cause because we work on the rest of the car too — and if it turns out your tires were fine, we will tell you that and charge you for the diagnosis instead of the tires.

The accreditations are not decoration. AMVIC licensing means we are regulated by Alberta's automotive consumer protection body. NAPA AutoPro brings a nationwide parts and labour warranty that is honoured across Canada, not just at our door. AMA/CAA approval means we passed an independent facility inspection and that members' complaints get reviewed by somebody other than us.