Directory at the exit

I probably should have moved this directory picture to the start of the set... oh well. This shows all of the various departments that Canadian Tire has, including some oddities like a dedicated vacuum department. 

I wonder how many people in Vancouver bother switching out their tires between winter and summer, as the ad on the right implies. I'm guessing it's a lot fewer than most other places in Canada, since Vancouver has relatively mild winters similar to Seattle, and that sort of tire changeover isn't a common thing around here.

Comments

  1. Anonymous in HoustonMay 26, 2025 at 9:45 PM

    Sears used to have dedicated vacuum departments, with dedicated sales people, until the early 2010s. Unlike a Target or Walmart type store, they had demo models which could be tested on the sales floor. They usually had rugs in the department and the salesmen could sprinkle dirt on the rugs and the shoppers could test the vacuums that way. I know that we always tested vacuums before we bought them in such a manner, but now it's hard to do that because most stores don't have demonstrators like that. Maybe Best Buy does, and I don't know about Macy's, but otherwise I suspect one would have to go to a dedicated vacuum store to test vacuum cleaners and those dedicated stores generally sell different stuff than what department/discount stores sell. Usually stores that sold vacuums in special departments like that would be combined with the sewing machine department.

    I suspect even a lot of places in the Northeast US, and maybe even Canada, don't need dedicated winter tires like they might have 30 years ago. The amount of snowfall has really decreased in that area. I know some people in Albany, NY were talking about how at least from a weather perspective, there isn't really the desire to move to Florida anymore because the winter weather there is not nearly as bad as it used to be. Some places might require winter tires by law, but I don't know. I'd be surprised if there was a need for them in Vancouver.

    Back in the day, people often mounted their winter tires on plain steel rims. It's hard to imagine some of these modern cars with big wheels running on steel rims! Of course, as I've seen, a lot of modern SUVs now, even 4wd ones, come with low-profile summer tires rather than all-season tires. It is kind of funny, people buy those thinking they'll have great traction in the winter, but they'll probably get worse traction than a FWD Toyota Camry with all-season tires, lol. Oh well, that's not my problem, if they want to get bamboozled by their expensive car purchases, I guess they'll be bamboozled in every way. I suppose it is only my problem because the FWD sedans are fading from the market very quickly, even though I see a ton of new Camrys and such on the roads here in Houston. I know the 2025 Camry comes in a teal color which seems pretty popular on those. They really stand out from the greyscale SUVs!

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    1. Well, of course Sears used to have that! At least at this store, Canadian Tire didn't have anything as fancy as that in their vacuum department, but maybe the larger traditional Canadian Tires have more of that.

      Around here (speaking of western Washington -- eastern Washington is a different story), the only people who get winter tires are the ones who really like going into the mountains for winter sports. Most years, you can probably get by with summer tires as long as you just don't drive on the day or two that there's snow, and all-season tires should be plenty for pretty much everyone. I'm sure it's the same in Vancouver. And this past year felt like it was going to be "the year with no winter", since it barely even got below freezing in December or January... until we suddenly had a snowstorm on the day I had to leave for my Italy trip. Bad timing!

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