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When the roads are treacherous, with hidden pot holes and obstacles to cause a horrible puncture in your car’s tyre. You might not have ever changed your car’s tyre before, or not had an issue for some time, so to make sure you know what to do in the event your car needs a little DIY, here’s a step-by-step guide!
Make sure everyone is out of the car before starting to remove change your tyre. Not only should you do this for safety, but it will make it much easier to jack the car up and begin removing the bad tyre.
To make sure the car is stable and won’t move anywhere, check the handbrake is secured. You can ensure this by placing blocks on the wheels that aren’t going to be changed, which will prevent movement.
You might need to loosen the wheel nuts to be able to do this. Get the wheel wrench to loosen them, using your foot if it’s too stiff by pressing down on the wrench horizontally.
To pull the wheel off, the car has to be raised off the ground. In order to do this, you have to get the jack to lift the car and placing it in the jacking point on firm and flat ground. The jacking point can be found in the car’s manual, or by looking for indents underneath the frame of the car. Once in place, slightly raise the car so the tyre is just off the ground.
Next you will need to remove the wheel nuts if you haven’t already – this will allow you to then pull the wheel towards you.
Replace the faulty tyre with the spare one, ensuring the fittings go in the right place. You should make a note here of the instructions your car has for it’s spare tyre – you might find that your spare has the maximum speed limit written on the wheel. If so, ensure that when you’re back on the road driving, you don’t exceed the stated limit as spare tyres are temporary and so are intended to get you to the nearest garage in one piece!
It might be tricky so you might need to concentrate! All nuts need to be replaced correctly to ensure the tyre stays in place and doesn’t cause any more issues. To hold the tyre in place, start by tightly securing the nuts diagonally.
When the tyre is secure and all the nuts are fitted tightly, turn the jack the opposite way and lower the vehicle. You can then refit the hubcaps – bear in mind, some hubcaps have to be secured by the nuts, so you will need to fit them before tightening the nuts and lowering the vehicle.
If you have a puncture, a rip or tear, now you have a secured replacement wheel, you can take the broken wheel to get repaired or replaced. Most garages can do this for you, so make sure you check how far you have to go for this. You can easily give us a call at Brindley to check the best time and pricing first here.
Some tyres might be too big or heavy to change alone, so you will need the help of someone else – one person should lift the tyre when fitting, whilst the other positions it tyre in place. Similarly, alloy wheeled cars can be difficult to change as they have locking nuts in place to prevent theft. If your car has this, read your car’s manual to see instructions on how to change them.