Welcome to Teach Skills You Learn - How to Change a Tire

Flat tire? No Problem! In this episode of Teach Skills U Learn, we break down the step-by-step process of changing a tire - no mechanic requried. I'll walk you through everything from the tools you need to safety tips that'll keep you confident roadside. Whether it's your first flat or you just need a refresher, this hands-on guide will have you ready to tackle a tire change like a pro. Let's rool up our sleeves and get into it!

You can also check out my channel on YouTube:

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Transcript

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Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Bethany Skillern, and this is Teach Skills You Learn. I'm gonna teach you how to change a tire. We're gonna get deep into it real quick. First thing I'm showing you is that I'm using a 22 millimeter socket. And this is for my 2024 Jeep Wrangler. So mine takes a 22 millimeter, yours might take 19 millimeter, it could take uh it could take um 1316. Um so you're gonna want to look at your manual um or if you have a set of uh socket set, you can look at that and use the socket set to find which one's yours. You want it nice and tight. You don't want it loose when you sit stick to socket in there because you don't want to you know strip it. So mine's a 22. I am using uh my husky breaker. My breaker bar. I'm using my husky torque wrench. This is not recommended. Please don't do this on your torque wrench. It's not recommended. It's really recommended just to use as a as the torque wrench, not as a um I I let my neighbor borrow my uh breaker bar, which is fine. What you're doing is I am breaking the lug nuts. That's all you do. Break them. You don't loosen them all the way, don't take the lug nuts off. You just break them so that you can free hand loosen those lug nuts. Now, what I'm grabbing is my bottle jack. Um, because I have a over 6,000 pound um car, which is probably 6,400 or 6,500 pounds, I need a uh uh more than a three ton. So I would need like a four-ton. Um one ton equals two thousand pounds. So I got myself a bottle jack that I believe is a 12-ton. So it can, it can, you know, it can it can lift some heavy duty. She's heavy duty. So what I'm doing now is I'm showing you underneath my car and I'm looking for the frame portion of the car. Flat part of the car that is your frame portion, because you want the flat part of your frame so that you can I can rest the top of my bottle jack and it not slip, slide, and you know, cause damage to not only your vehicle, but to yourself. So I found the flat part, and what you do is you first of all with a bottle jack uh that I have there's a little valve at the bottom. You want to make sure you go righty tidy. So you want to tighten that valve so that when you jack or when you crank on this um bottle jack that you get, as you see, I'm tightening it up, tighten that valve. And what you do is then you're gonna start cranking on this part where you're gonna see me. These are the parts that they give you for the jack. Um and you're gonna see me stick it into that that's one part, and then you're gonna see me and extend. It's like roughly only two feet. It's not like a big extension, but then you're gonna be like an asshole, like I am, and you're gonna start cranking on this thing, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down until this, and you see this piston, and you see the silver part. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. You see the silver part, you see, as you crank on this lever part, you're gonna see the silver part move up it up. And you're gonna keep cranking on this. Yep, I show ya. Look at that. You're gonna see that part hit the frame, and you need to hit the frame. You can't just stick that anywhere if you stick that on your oil pan, if you stick that on your gas pick can, if you stick that anywhere that is not your frame, you are going to um damage your vehicle. So don't do that. Don't be that guy. So look at me, cranking like an asshole, up and down, up and down. It's like it's only giving me like a foot. That that whole entire two feet is only giving me, oh my god, this is this is a common occurrence. You're like, and again, this is middle of summer. It's probably it's hot and humid today. So I'm sweating, I'm sweating my my balls off right now, and I'm trying to get this thing to work. Um obviously it is not to my favor, to my benefit, but that's okay. We're not, you know, I'm I'm here to show you how to change a tire. I'm not here to show you uh, you know, anything pretty. It's just this is for you to be able to take this life skill or this this the skill. And um, if ever you need to change a tire, if you're the side of the road, generally cars come with a spare tire and they come with a sort of jack, whether it's a scissor jack, whether it's a um it's generally gonna be a scissor jack, which is um something that you crank. But I have a bottle jack for this uh episode. So as you feel the resistance, you're gonna feel the tension, you're gonna feel the resistance. That's because this jack now is starting to lift the weight of the car. So I'm trying to show that we are going to lift this so that the wheel is free spinning. It's able to spin freely. And uh once you get your wheel to be able to free spin or just spin freely, like you've lifted the car uh high enough, then I'm able to, by hand, as you can see, take these lug nuts off. And I take them off and you put them in a safe spot. A spot that you aren't gonna lose them, a safe spot where you're not going to um, you know, forget them. So there they are. Five, I believe there's five of them. One, two, three, four, five, and that one's giving me a little hard time. So you just wiggle the car, you wiggle the wheel a little bit because it's the pressure of the wheel. Because once you get all those nuts off, once you get the the four nuts off, that fifth one, if you don't maneuver that a little bit back and forth, what see how the bottom part kicks out? Yes. Now you're gonna see me like, oh, oh, I'm gonna take it off. And that's how you take it off, right? So then you go back, get your spare, and then you're going to put your spare, which a lot of times in cars or in vehicles, you get my ass right there. Look at that. Um, what you get in vehicles are donuts. It's what they call donuts. It's just like a very, you know, it's a small version of a tire, but it's just supposed to get you to a repair shop so you can get your tire fixed. That's all it's supposed to do. And then once you get your tire fixed, you take that donut off and you put that tire back on the car. You should not be riding on a donut. Definitely not. As you can see, the weight of the this tire wants to kick out. It's just kind of that's you know, you're gonna get that. That's and that's okay. All right, that's that's that's that's what you're gonna get. So you're gonna want to put those lug nuts on by hand. Hand tighten those lug nuts. And um, I'm I'm gonna show you, you're gonna put five of them on. So I've got three so far, but remember that bottom one wants to kick out because of that weight. So we're gonna um I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna be able to show you how that works. Um, but here we are. We're working on it. All right, and this is the fifth lug nut. We're gonna get that on. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. All right, and then you're gonna see how I um I'm going to push at the bottom part of the wheel. Remember where it kicks out? I want to push that as close to the rotor as possible. See all that room that I had? All right, so now you're gonna see me hand tighten all of those. Um I'm gonna get them as close to the rotor as possible. And the reason why you want to get them as close to the rotor as possible on a hand tighten is because once I get them hand uh tightened, I'm going to take the pressure uh and put it back on the tires so that the wheel doesn't spin. And I'm only going to release this bottle jack enough to get the wheel to stop spinning. So that means that the little bit of the weight, not the full weight. I don't like to put the full weight until I've gotten until I've you know tightened all of those lug nuts to spec. So now you're gonna see me go to the little bottle jack. You're gonna take that little part that's is to the valve, and you're gonna just ever so loosey, lefty loosey. You're gonna let I'm gonna turn to the left a little bit, allow the weight of the uh of the vehicle to slowly drop down, and then I'm going to go righty tidy again. I'm gonna stop that um valve. I'm gonna close that so that I'm showing you here that the wheel is no longer free spinning, right? I don't want that wheel to free spin because now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to uh torque spec uh those wheel, those lug nuts, which is I'm gonna go to 120 foot pounds. Um you're going to want to go based on your manual, so it's gonna roughly be 80 uh to I mean, most vehicles are 100 foot pounds, most of them. I uh went to 120 foot pounds because that's basically what a 6,500-pound vehicle, five lug nuts. That's basically what the a a torque spec would be. Uh it's like roughly 90 to 120 foot pounds. So I'm going max, 120 foot pounds. Um, I can leave it at 100 foot pounds, or I could do 110 foot pounds, um, but I feel that 120 foot pounds is uh is a is a pretty good, it's it's pretty good. Uh it's on the tight, but it's not too tight to where on the side of the road I can't, you know, I wouldn't be able to get it off. So it's it's it's right there on the money. Um, you know, a lot of car, you know, repair shops like to use their you know air compressor or their their drill and and drill those on to like 100, 230, 300 pounds. That's excessive. Like you can't even get that off. So as I'm trying to show you like an asshole that I'm at 120 foot pounds with this torque wrench, but it's the reflection, the camera is not getting the so just believe me when I tell you. Maybe I'll show you how to use a a torque wrench, but um, I use a torque wrench because I believe in you know being very um conscious and it's it's just it's how you uh it's the details, it's it's about the details. And for me, it I like to torque my wheels downright. Um, I like to torque uh on the oil change um the pin, the the and you're gonna see a star pattern. I'm trying to figure out what what star pattern should I do. So I did that that first nut, and now I'm doing the second nut, which is the opposing direction. Then I chose the next nut over on the left, and I'll finish the star pattern. Okay, but that's how um that's how it goes. And um that's how you change a tire. And once you get all your lug nuts, you know, torqued on, then you can put the full entire weight of the vehicle um onto the tire. But that's how I do it. Welcome back. Thank you for joining me. I hope uh that uh shows you a little simple way to it, it really is simple to change a tire. If ever uh you do come across needing to change your own tire, look in the trunk of your vehicle. There should be a pull handle, there should be a way to lift up the bottom part of your chunk so you can see where the spare tire is. Get to know where that's at. Inside the spare tire, it might be underneath the spare tire, or it might be inside uh the spare tire, but you should be able to see a jack, a scissor jack. Um, if you look at it, it's compressed. Um, there should be a looks like a little 7 or an L shape tool. That is, looks like there's a flathead screwdriver on one end, and then it looks like there's um socket on the other end, and that's the it's it's it's fit for your um lug nuts. And then you use that bar to break the nuts, and then um you're gonna need that bar to twist where the little flathead screwdriver looking hole is. That's where you're gonna put your that other end of your bar, like your your that little seven bar or that little L, that L L bar, and then you're gonna turn and you're gonna crank that scissor so it expands so it can, so you can lift your vehicle, and you're gonna find the frame of your vehicle, and then you're going to twist that um, you know, that screw or whatever it is that that allows that scissor to expand. And then that's how you lift your car. And you're gonna lift it so that the loop, you know, again, after you've broken the nuts, you're gonna lift that car up on the side of the road. But you never know what time of day that would be, whether it's during the day, whether it's, you know, um at dusk or at dawn or you know, in the middle of the night, God forbid that would ever happen. You don't want that, you know, you don't want that to happen. But you know, you at the event of something happening in an emergency, you you never know when that's gonna happen. So uh consider maybe getting yourself flares. Um, consider they have them pretty inexpensive. They even have ones that blink that are lights that you can throw back in your truck or your your car, like a little uh like a little bag. Uh a little bag that has flares or the blinking lights. You can probably get on my Amazon triangle, like those uh uh that you can see, um, just to put out for your safety, because you're going to be on the side of the road and you don't know whether it's gonna be on the passenger side or on the driver's side. Well, if you're on the driver's side, that's where traffic is. And putting out flares or putting out emergency vehicle or a vehicle that's in an emergency situation is going to it could save your life. If you're gonna be working on your car on the side of the road, again, if you get a flat, try to get as far in the ditch, as far over in the ditch, staying flat as possible, you know, to be able to work on your car. Remember, staying as flat as possible. You don't want to be lopsided inside the ditch. So if you come, if you come to the point where you have a flat, um, and the best is to try to stay as far into the shoulder as possible without being at a tilt or at an angle, without being at an angle, and remember you know, remembering your safety. So if you're on the drive, if your flat's on the driver's side, that you are able to work safely on your vehicle. If you are unable to work safely on your vehicle, you don't have any flares, you don't have anything like that to do this safely, the best thing to do is then to just call for a roadside assistance because safety, uh, your life matters. And if you are unable to perform this task on the side of the road without being hit by a car or another vehicle, you know, whatever the case may be, um, the worst thing that could ever happen is you're working on the side of the road, you don't have any emergency flares, or you don't have anything that tells any other drivers that you are stranded on the side of the road and you personally, your personal body and safety is at risk, then don't take that risk. Stay in your vehicle. If you are going to exit your vehicle, um to stay deep into the shoulder, to stay so that you can at least see traffic and you can at least see if anybody is heading towards your vehicle. If you don't want to, if you feel that uh you wouldn't safely be in the vehicle if somebody was to hit it, if you're going to be outside the vehicle waiting for roadside assistance or emergency personnel, then stay away from the vehicle. Make sure that you're deep into the ditch, right? And that you are looking at traffic. You're not distracted, you're not on your phone, you're not doing anything where you can't see where people, cars, distracted drivers may hit you. At the event that you need to change your tire or fix your car, always think about your safety first. Um, so maybe a a little go bag in your car with blinking lights, hazard lights that um are put feet in front of your car so that it warns drivers that there is somebody. And that's just a smart way to do it, you know? Stay alive, uh, do something kind or nice to a stranger, and uh we'll catch you again on the next episode. Uh, thanks for joining me and have a wonderful day.