How To…Change a Flat Tire

Good day, everyone.  How are all my classmates doing?  This tutorial is a lesson on how to change a flat tire.  For most of you, this may be as simple as:

1. Pull over and park vehicle safely.
2. Turn on hazard lights (four-way flashers).
3. ‘Call Triple A’ (probably on speed dial).

However, for those of us who don’t have the patience, or the deep pockets, to wait two hours for a half-hour task, this is a simple guide to getting you back on the road faster than you can say”What tha H#!! is taking that tow truck driver so long?

1. If you are driving and a tire goes flat, grasp the steering wheel with both hands, slow down and pull over to the side of the road. This should be flat, level road.   Be sure that there is ample safe space between your vehicle and moving traffic.
2. Turn on hazard lights (four-way flashers), and turn off engine.
3. Important: Set Your Parking Brakes!  The last thing you want is for the vehicle to start rolling away, especially when you have exited it.
4. Remove spare tire, lift jack and tire iron from the trunk.
5. Set the lift jack in the appropriate car lift space nearest to the flat tire, but do not jack up the vehicle.
6. Loosen all tire lugs using the tire iron.  Ladies, this may take lots of elbow grease…but men keep grease under their fingernails specifically for this purpose!
7. Now, use the car jack (not robbery) to lift the vehicle to a height where the flat tire is off the ground.  The reason this is done after loosening all tire lugs is because the lugs are tight on the tire.  Removing them with the tire in the air is difficult and will only turn the tire, not loosen the lugs.
8. Remove all the lugs and remove the flat tire.
9. Place the spare tire on the vehicle.  Replace the lugs on their bolts by hand and tighten.  The correct way to do this is to tighten every other lug until all lugs have been tightened.
10. Lower the vehicle using the lift jack.  When the vehicle is down and the tire is contacting the ground, make sure you re-tighten each lug so that they hold the tire securely in place.  Replace flat tire, lift jack and tire iron in the trunk.

There you have it .  Faster than I can type a 140 character message on Twitter, you have changed a flat tire.  Once you are back on the road and thinking about it, if you had chosen the first option- you’d (probably) still be waiting for that tow truck driver.