Road Side Tire Change Using tools supplied with car

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In this video, we're just going to give you a tutorial on doing a roadside tire change. This vehicle is a 2003 Chevy Monte Carlo. A lot of the jack and tools and stuff in this vehicle are the same for many GM vehicles for this era, and the first part of it is when you realize you have a flat tire, pull off to a safe area. It's better to drive a little bit, slowly on the flat tire in order to get to a safe place to change it, a safe and level place, than trying to just stop where you are and do a tire change without finding a level place. If you find yourself with a flat tire, the best thing to do is drive slowly to a safe, level place that's out of the way of traffic.

Once you've found that safe, level place, shut your car off, make sure it's in park, and make sure to set the emergency brake. You get out of your car, and you notice that your right rear, or passenger rear, tire is flat. It's always a good idea to carry something like this. It's a lighter brick. Carry a brick. If you don't have anything like that in your car, roadside you can always find good rocks. You'll want to chock both sides of the opposite wheel. Our right rear is flat, our left front we'll put the brick in there, and you want to make sure you don't get a round rock, or round branches don't really work either, because they can actually . round items, when the wheel rolls, the wheel can push out of the way. It's better to get something square, or something that you can really wedge in underneath the tire.

The jack and spare tire will vary by car, but in this Monte Carlo it's right here in our trunk. We undo this circular bolt, lift up this panel, and here's our spare tire. It's a good idea on occasion to come in here and check the pressure on this tire. The worst thing that could happen is you'd have a flat tire, and then you come in here and your spare tire is flat. At the very least, come in here, press down on it, make sure it's nice and firm. Best idea is to check the pressure; but here's the tire. Lift it out, and pretty typical of a lot of these GMs is a scissor jack and a combination lug wrench as well as the jack activator. Take that out. The jack comes right out.

So now we're here at our tire. You can bring this right along with you to hold your stuff, and this is, like I said, it's a combination activator for the jack as well as a lug wrench. This car has a hubcap. A lot of times on GM cars you'll have these plastic safety caps. You just take your little activator and either remove these caps fully, or on this case, these caps stay in the hubcap and hold the hubcap on. That one came out. I'm just lightly pulling on the hubcap, and then it comes off. With your wheel still on the ground, and the front blocks chocked, you want to loosen up these lug nuts. This is designed to be a wrench, too, and you can do that. You will need some more strength. Put it on here, so this is nice and flat. Grab hold of the car and put your foot on it, and do that to get some leverage. You just want to loosen these up a little bit, just so you know you can get them off.

Our lug nuts are loose. These jacks are usually designed to work a certain way. You can see that there's a line right here that's actually designed. You can look right down under here. There's a pinch weld right here. This part of the jack goes right in the pinch weld. Now all I'm doing is I'm turning this bolt here by hand, which raises the jack, and I'll put it underneath. Spin it up until you can get that pinch weld right on it.

Now this is probably the most time-consuming part of the whole thing. You're going to use your wrench, and it's designed to do this. Go half a turn, spin it back; half a turn, and spin it back. I'm going to fast-forward here as we jack the car up, and you want to jack it up to a point where the wheel is nice and free, and it spins freely, so it'll come off easily.

Now you can just remove your lug nuts the rest of the way. If you got to a point, you have your lug nuts off . and you can see I still have one on, but that's just to show you this . but if your lug nuts are off and your wheel seems to be stuck on, best idea is kick with your heel. You can put a hand on the car, and kick right at the top. Don't try and kick with your toe, you'll probably break your foot. Kick with your heel on the top, and it might even be a good idea to have one lug nut on, just a couple threads, so if it pops off the wheel doesn't go flying off and hurt you.

Put the tire down so it doesn't roll away, and obviously put the spare tire on. You're just going to rotate it until all the studs line up with the holes, and then you just want to put your lug nuts on by hand first. Just use your little lug wrench and tighten them, just by using this part of it. Now you can lower your car back down, and usually lowering is a little easier, so you can try and do it this way. If not, just use the same method. Bring it down, and bring your jack all the way down so it goes back in the little carrier. Now use your wrench and tighten. Again, if you're a lighter or smaller person, then also I'm tightening these I started on this one, go to this one, and basically do a star pattern . but if you're a lighter person and you want to make sure you get it tight enough, you can always stand on the wrench. You want to make sure you get them nice and tight. I like to just go around, just right around in order, and check to make sure they're tight.

For now, you can put your jack back away; and for now, you just have to put your tire in the trunk so that you can get it fixed.

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