Love Thy Car
Know how to take better care of your car.
How to change a flat tire
Don't we always seem to have a flat at the most inconvenient times. But to a person who knows how to change a flat, that inconvenience is a chance to display his/her self-sufficiency.
Knowing how to change a flat tire is a skill every person who drives should possess. It will save your own skin when you’re out on some lonely stretch of road and come in handy when helping a damsel in distress or a hapless traveler on the side of the road.
Follow these simple steps and you’ll be back on the road in no time.
Tools needed: Spare tire, jack, lug wrench.
1. Park your car on a flat surface. Also, make sure to put on the emergency brake.
2. Loosen the nuts of the flat. If your car has a hubcap, remove it so you can get to the lug nuts. Use the hubcap to hold the nuts. Take your lug wrench and place it on the tire's lug nuts. Loosen them up by turning them counterclockwise. The nuts are probably on there really tight, so you’ll have to use all your man strength to unscrew them. Loosen the nuts a few turns, but don’t take any of them off yet!
3. Jack the car up! Check your owner’s manual for the correct placement of the jack. Turn the hand crank at the end of the jack to raise the jack until it comes into contact with your car’s frame. Make sure it’s touching a sturdy spot. Start cranking the jack until the wheel is high enough above the ground to remove the tire.
4. Remove the flat tire. Remove the lug nuts from the wheel. You should be able to do it by hand because you’ve already loosened them. Remove the flat tire and lay it flat. You don’t want the wheel to roll into traffic during rush hour and cause a thirty car pile-up.
5. Slap on your spare tire. Take your spare tire and line up the lugs, or bolts, with the holes in the wheel and slide the wheel on. Once the wheel is on, take your lug nuts and tighten them by hand until you meet firm resistance.
6. Lower the car. Lower the jack until the wheel is firmly on the ground.
7. Finish tightening your lug nuts. These nuts must be on super tight so the wheel doesn’t come flying off while driving to the tire shop to get the flat fixed. Use the patterns shown for tightening the bolts on your wheel.
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