Ladies, Do you know how to change a tire on your vehicle?

[Royd]

Quote:
Not to cause a riot/argument here ...

but.......

None of my daughters or wife are strong enough to take off lug nuts at 80lbs of torque. My sons, barely. Now my big van, well its torqued down like Royd's big truck. 6 lugs per wheel. I always stop to help a lady with a flat tire. In my experience most of them do not have the upper body strength to get them off.

In that case, the thing to carry, in each vehicle, would be a long 1/2" breaker bar, with a snug fitting cheater pipe, a 3-6" extension, and the proper sized impact socket....And be sure that they know how to use it, without busting their knuckles, on the pavement....How would I know?????

 

[Tala]

Quote:
That is the reason that I do not allow ANYONE else to put tires on my truck. I have to know that I can get them back off on the side of the road in the rain.
My dad also taught me to use copper anti-sieze on the threads, for ease of removal.

What you really need is a cheater bar or a long handled breaker bar. With the proper length of cheater-pipe my dad who is shorter than the average man and only "average" weight/strength says he can apply over 300 foot pounds on the side of the road. Only an engineer would bother to figure all that up!

I have a good sized 4-way and just put on my own tires.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I know how to, and will if I have to. But in all honesty, it's been over 20 years since I had a flat tire. I do wonder if I still have the upper body strength to change one now. but I dont give up easily. ETA, I have used my feet in certain circumstances though.

 

[Tala]

Quote:
20 years???
Wow, by the time I wore my 4 tires for 4 years, I swear I had a plug in each one of 'em!

Course, I *do* frequent scrap yards....but the thing is I can almost swear that none of these flats came from the scrap yard. I think it's city type construction that leaves crap everywhere. For example there has been a LOT of remodeling/building work done on the building that I work in. I'm always picking up nails or screws out of the parking lot. I always pick them up if I see them, so they don't get in my tire or anyone else's.
I suspect that the nails/screws that I have run over in the past few years have come from similar situations, not from the scrap yard.

 

[kagedgoddess]

i learned all by myself! haha. i got a blow out on I 95 at 2am ... no one can even see you to pull over and help, so i got out and tried all on my own... except the jack that came with my car only fit the outer bolts, NOT the actual tire lug nuts. around 9 am a state trooper pulled over and asked why i was sitting on the highway, well he luckily had a jack and helped me out. now wvery time i buy a car i make sure i have a jack that fits the lugs nuts. and what was the worst is i was only 20 minutes from home, but no one felt like driving out to help me.

 

[LilacMcGibbons75]

I knew the basics (I mean there is an instruction sheet sitting on the top of the spare 0.o) but the one day the tire actually went flat my mother refused to let me change it and instead preferred to wait 3 hours in a crazy hot parking lot for the tow-truck that NEVER SHOWED UP! Eventually we called up my dad to come and rescue us to then just drive across the street to get it replaced. When we could have changed it to the spare in about 30 minutes by ourselves. I never understood my mothers reasoning that day, and I still don't.

But when I bought my own car (used) dad made me go through the car and check all the brakes (which was a good thing because it turned out one of them didn't work!) so that was my real life experience.

 

[quietheart]

I've been a single Mom for most of the last 11 years so I know how to do a lot of stuff for my car

 

[Boyd]

a breaker bar and cheater pipe would definately help. I am a bit lazy tho, my wife and daughters have AAA memberships

 

[Chickie'sMoma]

i learned it in my driver's ed class over 16 years ago. now i guess it is standard to teach the kids in our area as part of the class.

i've only had one time where i needed to change my own tire and the hardest part was trying to get my hubcap off-practically welded onto the rim. it was nice that one of the customers of where i worked happen to see me and stopped to help. he had the muscle to pop the darned thing off and while he worked on getting the tire off, i was able to let down the spare inder my truck's bed.

good suggestion to keep in your emergency pack in the car is a cross iron. those straight irons are for the birds! the only way they are good is if you have a truck and that is how you have to release your spare!

 

[lichick28]

It's important to learn how to change a tire, especially now in the winter. When our kids were younger I got a blow out on I-95. I was stuck there with 3 kids reading the manual on how to get the tire from under the bottom of the Explorer. My boys kept insisting they could do it but they were 5, 10 & 11. A trucker finally stopped to help & I was so grateful. I was responsible for my kids safety & I feel like I didnt do my job as a parent letting them be out on the highway. I learned right after that incident. So long story short. Learn how to change a tire if you are able!