Can You Change A Tyre?

There’s a lot you have to do to make sure your car is in good condition. You don’t always want to be dragging it back and forth from a mechanic’s shop, and you want to know you could handle a roadside emergency if you ever broke down; knowing how to handle the vehicle you drive is simply a good life skill anyone should have up their sleeve.

So let’s start with the basics, and the most basic car care idea of all: do you know how to change a tyre? Did you learn about it whilst you were learning to drive? Have you seen any tutorials online? Do you even know if the spare wheel in the back is good to go in case any of the tyres burst? If you can’t answer any of these questions, feel free to read on for a bit of necessary information.

Get the Right Equipment

You’re going to need a certain tool kit to even try to change a tyre, one including items like a jack, a spare tyre itself, a lug wrench to loosen up the nuts and bolts, and hopefully you have your user’s manual in the car door as well. If you car has any specific needs to address before taking the old wheel off, they’ll be listed in here.

You might also want to invest in a coat for keeping in the back of the car, to make sure you can change a tyre comfortably in all weathers, some wheel wedges to keep the car still as you wrench it around, and have a torch handy in case it’s dark outside.

Use Some Force on the Lug Nuts

You’ve got a jack to lift the car, and now you’re going to need to actually remove the tyre. The lug nuts are going to be tight, as they’re meant to keep the wheel on against any road and weather conditions you could be driving in. And because of this, you’re going to want to put all your strength and body weight into using the lug wrench. Don’t worry, you won’t break your car!

Does your wheel have a hubcap on it? If so, be sure to take this off before using the jack to lift your car up. You’ll be able to get a much better grip on it if your car is on the ground.

Buy the Right Spare

Having the right spare for the back of your car can be hard to determine, seeing as there’s a lot of different tyres out there and you might not know your brand. However, if you look into some wheel packages available online, you’ll be able to filter by your car’s make and size, to be sure you’ve got something suitable to replace any punctures with.

Changing a tyre can be hard work, especially if you’ve never done so before, but you should absolutely know how to do it!