Okay. So for this episode of Cadillac Crisis DIY, I am going to just go over basic how to change your spare tire because, until like a year ago, I didn't know how to. And it's a relatively simple operation. And you can look up how to do it in your instruction manual level and I will show that bit little later. So on work.
Okay. So here in the garage, there are few things essentially that you will need. First, a jack. I'm using a Craftsman Jack. You can use a jack in your car. Most of them are located it in that deep down. Right now, I have the inside of the trunk pulled out because it was wet, but that's where it's usually located under a flap or something.
Instructions on how to do all this can be found in your owner's manual. I am here changing a flat tire. It gives you all the basic steps. The most important thing, we are going to take a picture of and have it up is right here. It shows you where to place the jack in relation to the wheel on your car so you don't accidentally start jacking a part of a car and warp the structural metal.
Okay. So once you've gone through your owner's manual, you want to then look underneath your vehicle. Now, this is not in all vehicles but on most there is usually a bare path here. See, it looks like a little lip. That is where you want to put your jack when you go to jack up your car. So you want to have it lined up as it is. And then, have it lined up such as that.
Then, slowly raise the jack until it makes contact with the car and I actually move this over a bit. Okay. So until it makes contact with the car, just because you want to make sure it's in a right place, check again. And then, proceed to jacking up your vehicle.
Okay, so after you've raised your vehicle a little bit off the ground, not enough for the tire to totally come off of like to lose contact with the ground but just enough for the car to be supported somewhat by the jack. You want to at this point, take your tire iron and loosen the bolts on the wheel. You want to do that in a, I guess, star information.
So if you start on this bolt, you want to go to either that bolt or that bolt. And then from there, you go to the opposite bolt. So if I start here and then I go here, then I want to do this bolt and that bolt and that bolt. Okay, so it's just a demonstration of what I was explaining before. Then I undo first this bolt nut. Take it off entirely, so it's still on there. Then move on to bolt across from it. Then again, across from this bolt is that one, loosen that. Then again cross, loosen that, cross; loosen that one.
Once you have done that, you want to jack up your car so the wheel is maybe a centimeter to an inch off with the ground. At this point, you then remove the bolts and again in that same star like fashion, do this one first. When you do take out the bolts, you want to make sure that you put them somewhere where they will not get dirty because if dirt gets on the threads of the bolt, then makes it really difficult to put back in.
So again across. Okay, so once you have all the bolts off, you can proceed to remove the tire. Now some cars are little weird, mainly German cars because with-here I'll take out the wheel. So after you've taken the wheel off, there are some slight differences between American and European cars.
Most European cars do not have these bolts sticking out. So the wheel is much harder to mount. You can still prop it up against this central ring, but it won't stay on as nicely as when you have these bolts here. And again, some American car your bolt will look more or like this when you take it off. And a European car, this whole part of the bolt plus the head comes off. So that's just something that you should watch out for when you go to remove or mount a tire.
So once you have gotten your spare tire out and put it back on your wheel, I don't have spare tires. So I'm just using the one I took off. You want to again lightly screw the bolts back on just with your fingers, holding the wheel in place to make sure that it's in the right location for when you go to tie nut bolts. I am again just doing it in the star pattern for I want to handle it.
Okay. Now here is where personal experience comes in and takes over from what you'll see in your instruction manual. I like to tighten the bolts when I change a tire, before I lower it to the ground because that way, your car doesn't settle in a weird position. Then, when you start driving, you find out that one of your bolts isn't actually as tight as it could be. So what you do? You just tighten one not all the way but a good amount. So you have got idea of how it's going to feel, then the next one.
Once you have all the bolts back on, what you want to do is I've tightened these, you want to go back to the first bolt you tightened and retighten that because that might have gotten looser from all the other bolts helping the wheels settle into its final position.
So you just go back, make sure they're as tight as they will go. And then, lower your car back to the ground and you'll be good to go. If you have a torque wrench, you might want to look in your owner's manual, because these bolts actually have to be tightened to a certain specification. I think the torque, like the propulsive torque needed is also located on the inside of driver or passenger side door depending on what kind of car you have. So yeah, that's everything you really need to know about changing your tire.
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