How to Spare Tire 2004-09 Subaru Outback

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

To get to the spare tire, open up the hatch, and go into the floor. You can actually push this down, lift that up, and there is a little hook here. Take it off, hook it right there so it holds up. You can lift out the foam tray in here. We'll put that aside. The majority of your spare tire and tools are here, but the handle is actually stored under here. Pop up the floor, and you'll need the jack handle, which is underneath. Put that floor back. Lift the whole foam container out with your jack and tools. Just turn the jack a little bit, pop it out. The towing eye is at the very bottom. Sometimes there's a screwdriver. This one is missing. Put that over here.

To take the spare tire out, turn it this way, unscrew it. That probably needs air. Put that over here. Lift it right out. This is a temporary spare tire. You should always follow the recommendations for the speed and mileage rating on this. This is just meant to get you off the highway, say if you have a flat, or wherever you are, to a safe place, and have the regular tire either repaired or replaced.

An important part of maintenance: you should always check the air in your spare tire. It often gets forgotten about because it's sitting in the back of the car. Then when you go to use it, the tire will be flat. This one has been sitting. It's probably original to the car. It's a little soft, so I'm going to add some air to it. It will say on the outside of the tire what to fill it to. We're going to inflate it to 60 psi, and we'll check it. It definitely does not have enough pressure. Now we're at 60 psi.

Before you jack up the vehicle, especially on the side of the road, just find whatever you can, maybe a piece of wood or a rock. If the vehicle is on level ground, I'd usually chock it towards the front. Especially if you're jacking up on the rear, it's most likely the car would want to roll forward. And then if you're jacking up in the front, the car might want to roll backwards. Or, of course, if you're on an incline, you try not to jack the car up on an incline if you don't have to. It's best to find a level spot. If you're on an incline, of course, put it on whatever side is opposite. I'm going to jack up the rear, so I'm going to put it in the front of the tire, and we'll leave it right there.

Of course, try to do this in the safest place possible. If you're on the side of the road, just be mindful of traffic. You want to take your lug nut wrench and loosen the lug nuts before you jack the car up, so put it on here. If they're really hard to turn for whatever reason, just be very careful, you can put your foot on here and break it free. Do the same for all of them. With the lug nuts loose, now we put the jack under the car.

We may have to adjust the height. You can just simply turn it by hand. When we get this close, there should be a cutout here where you can place your jack. It has a notch in it. It's going to go around the pinch weld. You want to get the pinch weld into that opening there. Take your jack handle, loop it through, and then raise the car up. Slide it underneath. That's not touching the ground anymore, I can take the wheel off.

I'll finish loosening all the lug nuts. Done. We got pretty lucky. This wheel's already loose. It'll come right off. Put it in the back of the vehicle. Get it out of the way. Take it to a place where you can have it repaired or replaced.

Take your temporary spare, put it on the lug nuts. Thread the lug nuts on by hand, get them threaded down. Just want to snug this down for now. Go in a cross pattern. We'll do a final tighten by hand with the vehicle weight on it. Lower the jack. You don't have to collapse this jack all the way. You just want to get on and off the highway if you're there, or just get to a safe place. Just get the jack low enough that the vehicle's off the ground and you can get it off the pinch weld, put it away in your car, and get on your way.

Take your lug wrench, just give them a final tighten, as tight as you can go, in a cross pattern. It's a short handle, you can't get too much leverage, but just make sure they're tight. If you have access to a torque wrench, you could of course use it, but you don't need one in an emergency like this. Now you're all set to get on your way.

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