When it comes to automobile, the only things that are in contact with the surface are the tires and therefore, it is safe to say they are extremely crucial to safe driving. I should know better, but that’s another story for another day. Anywho, even in the face of this fact, many drivers shook off the importance for a variety of reasons. Hassle is often the main reason of failure to check on the tires, but for some folks, it is the genuine lack of knowledge.
In Finland, however, Nokian Tyres has came up with a high-tech and novel solution to this nagging issue. Called SnapSkan, it is a digital tire check service developed in collaboration with car service chain Vianor that makes tire condition checking and monitoring quick and simple and without cost to the vehicle owner. What the Finnish tire maker did was, implementing this high-tech tire scanner at select parking garages’ exits or entries.
When a vehicle goes over the scanner ramp as they enter or exit the parking garage, SnapSkan will proceed to scan the tires with the latest 3D scanning technology, picking up the tire tread depth. Every car that passes through the ramp get a free evaluation of the tires condition, but the driver can opt-in via text message or online, before or after the scan, to receive a digital report of the tires’ condition. For those who opted in, the report will be send to the driver’s mobile device at no cost. If you do not wish opt-in for the report, the data of your vehicle will be deleted in a week’s time. The report basically tells you the measurements of the tire treads, which is usually an indicator of how worn a tire is, along with the tires size. A camera will link the measurements the ramp picked up to the license plate number captured by a camera.
In addition to the tires condition, the report will include a code that offers a discount on new tires at select stores for those who need replacement of tires. Clever. No doubt Nokian Tyres has drivers’ safety in their mind, but there is also no doubt that it is a pretty brilliant long-term marketing strategy. Anyways, with SnapSkan, you’d get the necessary check every time you roll in or out of the select parking garages, thus negating the need for you to hit up the tire specialist for checks.
SnapSkan isn’t new, though. Those in Finland may have experienced it since 2016 when it was first introduced back in 2016 in Helsinki as a pilot. Subsequently, the first customer service point was officiated in June 2017 in a parking garage in Turku, Finland. However, starting this week, there will be a total of four new SnapSkan service points in parking garages across various locations in Finland, plus it will be going International with the first service point opening in Oslo, Norway – the first SnapSkan service point outside of its home turf.
All images courtesy of Nokian Tyres/SnapSkan.
