With much of the Greater Toronto Area dealing with fluctuating temperatures and other weather conditions, mechanics say they’re seeing a surge in visits from drivers with vehicles damaged by potholes.
“We’re getting calls every other hour. Over the long weekend alone, we got 10 to 12 calls just on pothole damage,” Sean Cooney-Mann, the general manager of OK Tire Etobicoke, told CityNews Tuesday afternoon, adding that’s much higher than the typical three to six calls on an average weekend.
“The roads are opening up. They’re creating craters. People are having a hard time avoiding them.”
Cooney-Mann said he and his mechanics noticed a major uptick in appointments a few weeks ago with the arrival of bitterly cold temperatures, adding he’s personally felt more potholes on local Toronto roads.
“This is something we just see in the March-April timeline when that thaw starts to happen. [This] occurring already in [mid-February] is odd. We’re not normally seeing this. There’s usually more snow on the road that helps cover up potholes,” he said.
The damages seen, Cooney-Mann said, prompted him to urge staff and customers to regularly check the air pressure of their vehicle’s tires. After damage occurs, he also encourages people to have an alignment check.
“This year alone has been bent rims. We’ve gotten steel rims, this is a steel-clad rim that’s bending and flexing. We’ve had cracks in alloy rims. I have a strut today that was completely blown out,” Cooney-Mann said when asked about the types of damage being seen at the business.
“Slow down, avoid (potholes) when you can. Checking air pressures is your only real deterrent to help create a better absorption so that the tire doesn’t flex, the rim doesn’t take the impact, and the suspension can do what it needs to do.”
When it comes to damages, he said the unexpected costs can potentially “hurt” the bottom line.
“It can be a simple fix like repairing a tire or a rim to an entire suspension. It can go from a $42 repair to a $2,700 repair,” Cooney-Mann said.
Brian Pirvu, a representative with CAA South Central Ontario, echoed the cost factor when it comes to dealing with the aftermath of potholes.
“We even did a CAA member research survey, and … we found out that the average CAA member pays about $500 to up to $2,000 to fix a pothole, so it’s not an easy convenience to deal with and that’s why we continue to remain vigilant,” he told CityNews on Tuesday.
“We have seen a lot of potholes that have been forming, and we have seen our complaints.”
During the CAA’s annual worst roads campaign, Pirvu said potholes and poor road surface quality get raised. During the 2025 campaign in the Greater Toronto Area, Eglinton Avenue West was the top road cited. Other contenders included the Gardiner Expressway and Sheppard Avenue West.
CityNews contacted the City of Toronto on Friday to ask to speak with a representative about pothole issues, but a spokesperson said on Tuesday that no one was available to address questions in person.
In a written statement, the City of Toronto spokesperson sent data that showed municipal crews repaired 15,961 potholes between Jan. 1 and Feb. 13, 2026. During the same periods in 2025 and 2024, City staff repaired 32,597 and 38,439 potholes, respectively.
“Year-to-date pothole repairs are lower than in previous years, mainly because the high number of winter events has required our crews and resources to focus on snow clearing and snow removal operations,” the statement said.
Despite reports of damage-causing potholes, City of Toronto staff “currently do not have a pothole repair blitz scheduled in the near future.”
CityNews also contacted the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to ask about anecdotal reports of more potholes on 400-series highways, pothole report statistics, proactive and reactive responses to potholes, and methods for reporting potholes. Some of those questions went unanswered by a ministry spokesperson while referencing the existing spending plans for roads.
“The Ministry’s maintenance contractors continue to repair potholes as needed, and we are closely monitoring highway conditions to ensure they remain safe for all road users,” a brief statement said.
Click here to report a pothole on a local Toronto road, and click here for more information on filing a claim for damages with the municipality. For information on filing a claim for damages while travelling on a provincial 400-series highway, click here.
Meanwhile, Cooney-Mann encouraged governments to step up the response to potholes on local and provincial roads.
“Help our client base out. Help our insurance companies out. We all know we pay too much for insurance, and this is just going to send claims through the roof. A simple impact can be something simple, but when it gets to a higher dollar the everyday client has to go through insurance to cover that cost. They don’t have that loose cash to take care of an incident,” he said, adding he appreciates that maintenance crews are already busy.
