Learning About Car Maintenance
By: Brenda

If you had to choose one thing about car maintenance to learn you should take a moment to learn about changing your cars tires. Knowing how to change a tire can be one of the most useful things you learn about maintaining any vehicle. There is nothing worse than having a flat tire on the middle of the road especially if are on your way to an important meeting or in an isolated location.

Even with most cellular and auto insurance companies offering road side assistance it is entirely possible that you will end up spending hours waiting for a tow truck or service truck to come help you change your tire. If you are unfortunate enough to get a flat tire in a location that is blocking traffic or end up being accosted by an overly enthusiastic tow truck driver you could end up having to pay unnecessary towing fees on top of everything else. Knowing how to change your own tire means that you will never again have to wait for outside assistance to get the job done.

When you are ready to change a tire you must make sure that you have moved your car to a safe location as far off the road as you can manage. Make sure that you are following all applicable safety rules for your specific situation. Before beginning to change the tire make sure that you have applied the parking brake. Once your car is safely off the road and secured in place get your spare tire from wherever it is located (usually in the trunk of most vehicles) along with the jack and a lug wrench. If you are unsure of where the spare tire is look in your cars owner manual for its location.

Once you have found all of the equipment necessary to get your tire changed get started by taking off the hubcap of the tire you need to remove. In order to do this you should use the end of the lug wrench or a screw driver if you have one. Once the hub cap has been removed you should then loosen the lug nuts with one, single, turn. Be sure that you do not completely remove or loosen the lug nuts until you have lifted the car.

The next thing you need to do is lift your vehicle using the jack. If you are not sure how to do this consult your car owner’s manual or maintenance manual if one is available. The manual will show you were to place the jack and, in some cases, the jack itself might have direction on it. Once you are comfortable with using the jack you should lift the vehicle until the tire you wish to change is a few inches away from the ground. At that point you should finish removing the lug nuts and completely remove the tire that needs to be changed.

After you have removed the old tire you need to place the spare tire in the correct place and careful align the holes. Then you should place the lug nuts and tighten them until they feel completely secure. When you are satisfied that everything is in place lower your vehicle back to the ground and remove the jack. The spare tire should be able to last until you are able to properly replace the tire. Do not mistake the spare tire for a suitable replacement. Spare tires are only meant to last for a very limited amount of time and trying to ride on them for extended periods will leave you with another flat tire and this time no spare to replace it with.

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