I cannot stress enough the importance of knowing how to change your own car tire. Even if you have a good roadside assistance program, a reliable husband or brother, you cannot always depend on these people to help you out with a flat tire. After all, changing a tire is easy if you know what to do.

Safety First

Take the car out of traffic first, and park it on a flat surface. In addition, you should secure your vehicle with the handbrake as well as a block on the tire opposite the one you wish to change. The block can be any suitable material such as a brick, a piece of wood or stone. All these preparations are for your own safety as well as the safety of other passersby.

Jack it Up

Next, you need to jack up your car to allow you adequate space for removing the bothersome tire and replacing it with a better one. The foremost thing to note here is that your jack should be placed on a firm ground. The exact steps involved in jacking up the car depend on the kind of car jack you are packing. For example, if you have a hydraulic jack (those ones with cylinders for holding the hydraulic fluid), you just need to place the handle on an appropriate part of the car and pump it up. For the more common scissor jack, you first have to insert the rod and then crank it up. It will be very easy if you have practiced with the jack at home before.

Car Jack

Strength to the Rescue

After that, you have to remove the tire, and this means loosening and removing the nuts. If your car has a hubcap or wheel cap, then you have to remove it first so that you can get to the nuts. Removing the wheel cover is not difficult; you can pry it off with a screwdriver or a suitable tool. Just insert the sharp end of the tool you are using under the cover and lift it up. With your wrench, loosen the nuts by turning them in a counter-clockwise direction. Be prepared to strain here because the nuts will probably be very tight! The task will be considerably simpler if you use a cross-shaft wrench and a hollow pipe. Loosen all the nuts first before taking them off, and then you can just pull the tire out.

You need to be careful and pay attention to everything while going through the motions of your tire change. For example, you can store the nuts on the wheel cover so that you don’t lose them. The old tire should be placed flat on its side so that it does not roll off.

Car nuts

Slip it On

The next step is to slap on your spare tire and here again, you should brace yourself for heavy lifting. Remember, you will have to place the tire in such a way that its bolts/lugs are lined up with the holes in the wheel. It is only by doing that will you be able to slide the wheel on like you are supposed to. Next, take your nuts and tighten them by hand until you can’t tighten them anymore, and then lower the car. The final tightening is done using the wrench, and it should be done while the car is fully and firmly on the ground. Finally, just replace the wheel cover and you are done.

Clean Up

Take care not to leave any of your tools on the ground. Don’t leave the damaged tire, the jack, wrench, that box you placed behind the other wheel for support, or even that scarf you may have taken off while changing the tire. Remember, if you have replaced the flat tire with the designated spare tire, then you should have it replaced properly at the earliest possible opportunity, preferably not further than 80 kilometers. On the other hand, if you have used a tire that you carefully selected from the Point-S website, then you have nothing to worry about and you can keep driving as usual.

October 7, 2013
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