Changing a flat
tire is not a very pleasant experience. It seems like your car purposely tries
to get a flat tire at the least opportune moments. Changing a tire doesn't have
to be all bad. With knowledge comes power. If you are unsure how to change a
tire properly, and you want to know, read on. OK, so you are driving along and
all of the sudden you hear a loud bang and the telltale thumping noise of a
dead tire. You carefully pull off to the shoulder of the road. Checking to make
sure no other motorists are going to run you over, you exit your vehicle and
inspect the car. Sure enough, your car's left front tire is completely flat.
You are not going to be able to keep driving, so you are going to have to
remove it and install your car's spare tire in its place.
Jack up the Car
The first step is to find your car's spare tire, jack and tire iron. The spare
tire is almost always located underneath the floor mat in the trunk. Unless, of
course, your car doesn't have a trunk. If you own an SUV, minivan or pickup,
the spare tire is often mounted on the back of the tailgate or underneath the
vehicle itself.
Once you have found the spare tire, remove it from the car. If you have an air
pressure gauge handy, you will want to check the spare tire's pressure. If this
tire is flat, too, you're in a bit of trouble. But let's just assume you have
been keeping tabs on the spare tire's health, and its air pressure is perfect.
The next step will involve removing the flat tire. Make sure that the car is in
gear (or in "park" if the car is an automatic) and the emergency
brake is set. The car should be parked on a flat piece of pavement. Do not
attempt to change a flat if the car is on a slope or if it is sitting on dirt.
It's also a good idea to block the tire opposite of the flat tire. Therefore,
if the left front tire is flat, it would be a good idea to place a brick or
other large, heavy object behind the right rear tire. Blocking the tire makes
the car less likely to move when you are raising it.
Use the tire iron (the L-shaped bar that fits over the wheel lugs) to loosen
each wheel lug. The wheel lugs are almost certainly very tight. You'll have to
use brute force. You loosen them by turning them counterclockwise.
Now, at this point, you don't want to actually remove the lugs. You just want
them loose. Once you have accomplished this, move the jack underneath the car.
If you don't know where the proper jacking points are, look them up in the
owner's manual.
Maneuver the jack underneath the jack point and start to raise the jack. Most
car jacks these days are a screw-type scissor jack, which means you simply turn
the knob at the end of the jack using the provided metal hand crank. Raise the
jack until it contacts the car's frame and continue expanding the jack.
Remove the
Flat and Install the Spare
Raise the car with the jack until the flat tire is completely raised off the
ground. Once this is done, remove the wheel lugs completely. Depending on how
tight the lugs are you might be able to remove them by hand. Set the lugs aside
in a secure location where they can't roll away.
Position the spare tire over the wheel studs. This is the most physically
challenging part of the whole process. You'll have to hold up the tire and try
to line up the holes in the wheel with the protruding wheel studs located on
the brake hub. One trick that might help is to balance the tire on your foot
while you move it into position.
After you have the spare tire hanging on the wheel studs, screw each of the
wheel lugs back on. You'll want to start them by hand. Make sure you do not
cross-thread them. The lugs should screw on easily. Once each of them is snug
and you can't tighten them any further by hand, use the tire iron to finish the
job. At this point, you don't need to get the lugs super tight. You just want
them snug for now. Make sure that the wheel is fitting flush against the brake
hub.
Once the spare tire is on, carefully lower the jack. Pull the jack away from
the vehicle. The final step is to tighten down the lugs completely. The reason
you tighten the lugs now is that the tire is on the ground and it won't rotate
around like it would if it was still hanging in the air.
Wheel lugs have a specific torque rating that they are supposed to be tightened
down to, but there is pretty much no way you can figure that out using a simple
tire iron. The general rule here is to tighten down the lugs as much as
possible.
That's it. Put the flat tire in the space where the spare tire was and put the
jack and tire iron back in the car. Most compact spare tires are smaller than
regular tires (they look dinky and people commonly refer to them as
"rubber doughnuts"), so it is possible that the flat tire won't fit
in the spare tire well. Also, compact spares have a limited top speed. The
tire's top speed will be written on its sidewall. If your vehicle has a
full-size spare, you won't encounter these problems. With the spare installed,
you should be able to reach your house or the nearest service station
