10 Tips on Changing a Tyre

Changing a Flat Tyre

10 Tips on changing a tyre…

You were driving along and enjoying the scenery when you suddenly hear a pop and experience a frightening feeling, causing your car to take on a life of its own and forcing you to a dead stop! You get out and feel like crying when you see that you have a flat tyre; you’ve never had one before and always thought that it only happens to other people, but none the less, there you are, hands in the air and cursing the skies, asking “why me?”

Not to fear, Skankane Transport has ten tips for you that are easy to remember if you ever find yourself in this situation, sit back, relax and simply read on:

1. The last thing you need now is to cause an accident, so make sure your car is not standing in the middle of the road; if you are alone, huffing and puffing to try and push your car to safety is bound to happen but try to get it on a flat surface. If you can’t move your car, you can always just put your emergency reflective triangle about 45 meters behind it and hope that the other drivers will see it in time to swerve and avoid you.

2. Gather yourself and make sure your handbrake is on, as well as your hazards; the constant flickering sound might drive you nuts but it is a legal requirement, so just do it. Try to find a small rock or a biggish stone to put behind the tyre diagonally opposite your flat tyre and take a deep breath – if you’re a female, you’re bound to break a nail in the near future, so it’s time to mentally prepare. You can do this.

3. Now that you’re totally amazed at how an entire tyre was so skillfully hidden in your boot and utterly relieved to find it, you can start loosening the studs on your flat tyre with the tyre iron which was also cleverly hidden; you’ll probably have to jump on the tyre iron just to loosen the studs, but it’s easier that trying to loosen them after jacking up the wheel, as it will just spin around while you get red in the face.

4. Now you have to figure out how the car jack works. Your car’s manual should be able to explain it and tell you where to place the jack so that you don’t break off a part of your car’s framework. Crank it up until it contacts the frame and catch your breath, because the hard part starts now.

5. You will have to put some elbow grease into cranking up the car because the suspension will make it seem like the tyre is never going to lift off of the ground, and remember that the spare tyre will be inflated, so you’ll have to jack the car up high enough to fit the spare. This is where parking your car on a level surface is vital, as you don’t want to roll it off of a cliff if you jack it up when it is already standing on a steep slope.

6. If you spin the flat tyre around and find a nail or random piece of sharp metal that caused it to pop, remove the object and proceed to throw it as far into the fields as possible whilst being highly annoyed. Then you can return to the flat tyre and begin taking out the studs. Turning them counterclockwise will loosen them, just remember; righty tighty – lefty loosey. Put them in your hubcap if you have one or somewhere where they won’t roll away and add to your frustration. Take the flat tyre off and hide it in the spot where you found your spare tyre after what seemed like hours of searching.

7. Put your spare tyre on and use a stud to align the holes, then hold on to the tyre and start tightening all the studs by hand first, then use the tyre iron whilst still holding on the tyre with your other hand. This is necessary to avoid the tyre from spinning, as previously stated, because this can be rather annoying when you’re already dripping with sweat and desperately thirsty.

8. Stay positive – you’re almost done. Lower the jack completely until the tyre is firmly back on the ground; if the tyre is noticeably skew you have a problem and will have to repeat steps 4 – 7, ensuring that the tyre is properly aligned and the studs are equally tight. If the tyre seems fairly straight, you are not a complete idiot and you can proceed to tighten the studs with the tyre iron; you want them to be really tight to avoid losing the wheel while driving.

9. If you have a wheel with 5 studs, the best way of tightening them would be to do it in a star formation; going in a clockwise direction, start with one then skip one and tighten the next, skip another and tighten the next one until all your studs are secure. If you have four studs, this method will result in you tightening the same two studs the whole time, so try changing it up a little, ok.

10. Now that your spare tyre is finally secured to your car, you can throw your tyre iron and jack back into the boot, ring out your shirt of all the sweat and pat yourself on the back – you did it! Get in the car, turn on the music and don’t forget to take your handbrake off before you drive off, slowly, because a spare tyre has a 60km/h limit. Turn the car back around and fetch the emergency triangle which you forgot next to the road. Now you’ll have to find a place that can fix or replace your flat tyre without leaving you broke for the rest of the year.

Luckily, for the average Joe, this experience will only happen once or twice in your lifetime, but when it does, you are now prepared to handle it. Making sure your tyre pressure is always at the recommended level and that your tyre tread is at least 1.6mm all round, you can avoid unnecessarily causing damage that can result in a flat tyre. Share this with all your friends to make sure that they will also be ready to change a tyre like a professional.

10 Tips on Changing a Tyre