It would interest you to know that the first tyres were not made with cars in mind. A certain man wanted his son’s tricycle to have smoother rides, and that led to tyres. And finally when they made tyres for cars, the first of them couldn’t be changed at home or by the car owners. Imagine you had a flat tyre somewhere; you needed to reach car technicians or take the car to the factory. Not until some smart engineers at continental tires created a way one could change his car tyre. Now we take this ability for granted, so much so that some people don’t still know how to change their car tyres.
This is actually an important skill for every driver, you may not always be within coverage area to call for a tow or a car mechanic, your phone battery might be low or you even left it at home. As the owner of a car you need to be able to change your car tyres by yourself.
How To Change your car tyres by yourself
There are certain tools you need to have before you can do this. The most important ones come with your car, there some others you might have to buy.
You need to have
A jack
Lug wrench
Spare tire
Vehicles owner’s manual
Torch light of course with working batteries
Wheel wedges
Gloves
2” x 6” wood to secure the jack
How To Change Tyres.
Find a Safe Place
When you notice your tyres are down, resist the temptation to stop immediately, rather you should slow down, while you look around for a place where you can safely change your tyres. If possible find a level place, so that your car doesn’t roll back, find a nice straight stretch of road, with a wide shoulder so that oncoming vehicles can see you. If you can find an empty space, or some kind of parking lot, well that’s much better, of course don’t forget to turn on your hazard lights.
Use your handbrakes; this will stop your car from rolling back or forward, especially if you are on a slope. Then now put your wheel wedges, or a big piece of rock if one is not available.
Remove Wheel Cover and Loosen Lug Nuts
It’s easier to take off the wheel cover, while the tyres are still on the ground. The lug wrench will be needed for this. Do this and then next you’ll have to loosen the nuts holding the wheels/tyre. It will take a lot of force, use your wrench, and turn the nuts in anti clockwise direction, until you feel it start to loosen. It’s usually difficult, so you may have to apply a lot of force. Don’t loosen them fully, just attempt to break the resistance.
Raise the Car
Put your jack under car, that part where the tyre is to be removed, also, put the 2 by 6 wood, so as to prevent the jack from settling under the weight of your car. Now crank your jack until your car has gone like 6 inches of the ground. Now you can fully take out the nut and remove the flat tyre.
Mount Your Spare Tyres
Make sure your spare tyres are in good shape. Now place the tyres on the lug bolts, put it in totally until you see the bolts coming out through the tyre rim. Now put the nuts on the bolts and tighten them by hand as much as you can.
Lower the Vehicle
Drop the vehicle until the spare tyres are making contact with the floor, not resting fully though, now tighten them totally using the wrench. Fix back your hub cap and keep back all your equipment. This should take you somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes.
Buying good tyres, such as Bf Goodrich tyres will make you less likely to be stuck on the road, changing tyres. So when buying tyres for your cars you might want to consider this.
Comments are closed.