How to safely change car tires during quarantine?

The highway code provides that from April 1st vehicles can circulate with summer tyres. From 10 April it is forbidden to travel on cars with studded tyres.

The declared quarantine, however, has also changed the work of garages: they too must comply with quarantine requirements and guarantee the safety of employees and customers.

Stasys Konickas, director of the car maintenance and repair company “Autodiena”, says that even in quarantine conditions, residents, as well as companies or state institutions, use cars. Some provide emergency medical care or a courier service, while others use their own car to get to work safely. During operation the vehicles need to be repaired and at the moment they also take care of changing the tyres.

How to safely change car tires during quarantine?

“For the sake of the safety of employees and customers, we aim to have as little direct contact as possible with customers and to coordinate the order for car service services by telephone. Customers leave their car in our parking lot at the scheduled time, with a list of the required work and a telephone number,” says S. Konickas.

In cases where the car needs minor repairs, the customer can wait in the waiting or reception room, which is constantly disinfected and also has disinfectants. Furthermore, the car service also offers the service of collecting the car directly from home, if the duration of the vehicle repair is more than a few hours.

“Workshops also operate in Italy: they have to ensure that vehicles such as ambulances, police cars or couriers are repaired promptly. Vehicle repair is an important link in having as little contact with the environment as possible and avoiding the use of public transport, therefore we guarantee a constant and maximally safe supply of spare parts to both workshops, retail customers and wholesalers. Since most workshops try to ensure uninterrupted operation, their customers at least until they have to fear the fact that there is nowhere to change them during the tire changing season,” says Egidijus Macijauskas, representative of Inter Cars Lietuva, the largest importer and distributor of vehicle spare parts in Lithuania.

According to him, wholesale orders are placed via the company’s electronic platform or by telephone. The goods are delivered to customers via couriers in compliance with all recommendations and additional hygiene requirements due to quarantine, and all payments are made electronically only.

Where to leave old tires?

Residents who change tires at inspection and repair companies should know that when changing tires at car service centers or at their exchange points (small workshops), old ones should be accepted free of charge.

“Car repair shops are prohibited from returning old tires to owners. Car repair shops, like tire manufacturers and importers, must ensure that unsuitable tires are disposed of or recycled,” says Veronika Masalienė, head of the Association of Manufacturers and Importers (GIA).

The collection of old tires from the customer is free if they are intended for the same type of vehicle and are returned in the same size as the purchase.

“Residents do not leave used tires in sales showrooms very often, because tires are mostly changed in car service centers and returned there,” says E. Macijauskas. “In cases where our customer is a wholesaler who also assembles tires, we organize the free removal of old tires. Last year the waste collection and management company Atliekių Řavļių centras removed 58 tons of used tires from our branches, the year before that 57 tons. Tires from heavy vehicles are mostly collected for handling.”

Residents can also take old tires to a waste manager or hand them over to large municipal waste collection centers, of which there are almost 100 in Lithuania. Typically, these sites will accept up to 4 end-of-life tires per year from a resident for free. More information on the nearest collection points for tires and other waste, waste managers and delivery conditions during quarantine can be found at

The Association of Manufacturers and Importers, which has licenses to organize the management of taxable products (tyres, filters, batteries, shock absorbers, oil and other automotive waste), brought together the largest manufacturers and importers of cars and their parts and finances the collection and recycling of used tires. Furthermore, as part of the environmental projects “Let’s do separate collection at car services” and “Let’s do separate collection of car waste”, the association encourages car assistance centers to differentiate and collect waste separately, not to dispose of it with other waste, to educate and inform the public about separate waste collection and environmentally friendly activities.

Even if residents are given the opportunity to return old tires, they are still left on roadsides, in forests and other remote places and pollute the environment, even though recycling them or using them to produce energy would save resources. In nature, old tires decompose only in 120-140 years, and their illegal burning releases harmful substances into the environment. Rubber granules from recycled tires can be used to cover sports fields or playgrounds, parking bollards, shoe soles, road constructions and the like.

According to Lithuanian legislation, 80% of waste must be collected and treated every year. the total quantity to be presented to the Lithuanian market. However, thousands of used tires are not recycled because not all manufacturers and importers fulfill their obligation to organize and finance the recycling of old tyres.