Canada

I think the question was more in the sense of "synthetic or regular", there's a price and a functional difference.

Both will work, but synthetic will last longer because it resists shearing better.

We have a mechanic in my hometown, who is probably the best mechanic in town, without refute. Unfortunately he's had a bit of a drinking problem over the years, and naturally that's led to a few run ins with the law. Most of the local shops wouldn't have nothing to do with him later in his career, probably because of the insurance. Except Canadian Tire, which is where he ended up as the place of last resort. Thus it became the one and only Canadian Tire, on the planet, I would ever feel comfortable taking my car to.

Every other CT though, hell no.

I had a set of snow tires installed and they didn't balance them.

I live in a rich neighborhood and my Cambodia tire is surprisingly competent and see a lot of luxury brands move through there somehow

Easy enough to say if you're familiar with cars, car maintenance, and Canadian Tire.

But this is a service they're offering to people who know less about any of that than themselves who will assume they are doing a competent job

The photo in TFA shows some very thin sheet metal, and I don’t think that it is structural in any way.

If it's thin metal it's a heat shield. Putting nylon straps on a heat shield is just stupid. But, bad news guys, most shops, including dealer service, just throw these shields out. This is one reason why I change my own oil.

But in this car it’s metal, which makes me wonder if it’s a semi-structural component and therefore the zip ties wouldn’t hold,

Even if it isn’t structural in the least, the massively increased stiffness of metal over even thick plastic means that even pretty minimal flexing of the vehicle’s chassis would eagerly shear any size of plastic zip ties off.

This is very much a consequence of paying technicians among the lowest wage in the industry and failing to mentor them effectively. Not to mention being ignored, unsupported, and abused by Manglement.

I love Canadian Tire for its breadth of products, and have almost always found the staff there to be eager and helpful, but I don’t make use of their vehicle services for a damn good reason.

it's critical if you park on tall grass in a dry field.

FTA:

some of those zip ties snapped — dragging part of the metal plate under his car at highway speeds, causing him to slam into a ditch.

Sounds pretty damn critical to me.

Canadian Tire has always hired inexperienced “mechanics” and paid them as little as possible.

Their mechanics are all licenced. This is not a Canadian Tire problem, it's a trades certification problem and Ontario has basically eliminated trades certification inspectors since the fat man took over. It's also impossible to report a mechanic. I had one sign off on a motorcycle safety with no working brakes.

They said that further work was needed to be done and said it would be unsafe to release the vehicle.

they legally have to do that.

Canada does not do vehicle inspections for safety unless the car is sold. In most european countries, you need a MOT safety test every two years after 4 years of car life. Canada we let rotting pickups drive until they shed wheels.