Learn to change your tires

On the way home from work Monday I passed a guy who was changing a flat on his car. I see this every few months and always stop to ask if they need help. Normally the answer is "no". This time he needed help.

He'd gotten the spare from the trunk, removed the hubcap, got the jack in place, and the lug nut wrench in place. I'll give him props for that. However, while he knew the basic idea behind changing a tire, he'd never had to do it before. He couldn't break the lug nuts free and had the car jacked up enough that the wheel spun fairly freely. I helped him get the tire off, jacked the car back up, and then ran into some issues I was unfamiliar with.

What I'm saying is that if you haven't removed a tire from your car and put it back on then you really should do that. Ideally in a garage or driveway, but you could also do it on the street. Do I really need to remind you to do this on the curb side of the car? I did one on the traffic side of a car once. I had two people waving off traffic so I wouldn't get hit.

First, you need to know how your jack works. Some use a screw and a crank while some are hydraulic. Do you put it under the axle or along the frame of the car? If you do it along the frame is there a specific point you need to use so it doesn't tear out a chunk of fiberglass?

Does the hubcap pop off or are there plastic lug nuts that need to come off first?

Is there one wrench for all the lug nuts or does one require a special key (i.e. wacky shaped wrench).

It helps if you leave the tire touching the ground when breaking the lug nuts loose. Otherwise it wants to spin. Whoever put them on probably had a pneumatic wrench and put those babies on pretty tight. You may be able to do what we did and give the wrench a good kick to get it to turn. I've seen others that I can stand on and it'll hold my weight. You may find that you'll need a length of pipe that will fit over the wrench and extend it by a foot or two. This will give you more leverage and should almost always work. You'll then want to keep the pipe in your trunk.

Now you can finish jacking up the car.

The tire may come away easily. If not there's probably rust or dirt or some crud holding it in place. Try sitting on the ground and kicking the front or back of the wheel with your heel.

Before putting the tire back on you'll need to make sure you know which side faces out. One side probably has lettering on the side of the rubber. More telling but often overlooked is the valve stem. That should always be facing out to make it easier to reinflate the tire.

The problem I encountered was a pin placed between two of the wheel bolts. There was a matching small hole in the metal of the tire. I didn't see it at first and had a terrible time trying to get the wheel on. It wasn't until my 4th attempt that I saw it.

When putting the lug nuts back on there is a recommended pattern. You want to start at the top bolt and work in a star pattern. This ensures that the wheel goes on evenly. What I mean is that you'll want to get the top nut threaded, skip the next bolt and thread the nut on the third bolt instead. Then skip the fourth to do the fifth, the first to do the second, and the third to do the fourth. Continue around the wheel like this when tightening, too. If the wheel doesn't go on evenly it can catch on the threads or jam up in other interesting ways.

Make sure you crank those lug nuts down tight. Get them as close to how you found them as possible. If this means giving the wrench a couple of good stomps then so be it.

As long as you're worrying about this sort of thing there is one other point that needs your attention. Make sure your spare tire is aired up. The guy I helped had some air, but he was gonna need to make to the nearest gas station to top it off. It was pretty soft.

That's the heart of the issue. I didn't really get to go into the specifics of your car and tires. There's lots of little nuances to your car that you don't want to have to figure out for the first time in an emergency. If you haven't already, go out and do this before the weather gets much colder. If you already know how to change the tire then make sure your significant other and/or kids know how to do this as well.