In theory changing a tire is simple, take the old tire off and put the new one on. That can actually be very difficult and, if done carelessly, dangerous. Changing a tire should be a fluid process that everyone who is driving should know how to do. I do feel as though this is starting to become a skill more than common knowledge.
The first step is to assess your situation and gather all of the items that you will need to complete this task. You will need a tire iron, a hydraulic jack to lift the vehicle, and a spare tire or temporary tire called a donut, for this I will be referring to the spare tire as that is what I use. You would prefer to have the vehicle on a flat level surface for safety purposes, however you are not always going to have that option in a real world situation. After getting the vehicle to your target location you will want to turn it off and place …show more content…
You then need to place your jack under the car, which the placement of is detrimental to your safety. If you place the jack under an unstable part of the vehicle it could move or bend what the weight is on and seriously injure or kill you. If you are using the jack that came with your vehicle it will sometimes have instructions on where exactly to place the jack. If you are not using the original jack then you will need to look for a flat sturdy spot, usually located around the area you are need to lift. Once you have found that location then you can raise the jack just enough to put pressure on it and yet not enough to actually raise your vehicle. This is for safety reasons, because before you actually raise the car up you need to loosen the lug nuts on the tire. You will want to loosen them enough to be able to easily turn the lug nuts but not enough to where the tire will tilt on the rotor. Once you have completed that you can then raise the jack up enough to be able to freely rotate the