Essential info to know if you are a driver.

Filed Under Family, cars, life, random, sisters | 8 Comments

Have you ever gotten a flat tire? I haven’t, but I am confident that if I did, I would know how to change it. I think that this is one thing about cars that many people do not know how to do, but actually is pretty important to know.

2 weeks ago while Lauren and Mom were driving up to Guelph to meet the family for dinner, Lauren was driving on the 401 in the middle lane and the tire popped. Lauren safely got the vehicle off to the side of the road, mom was very impressed. They then called us (Erica, Scott, D and myself) and luckily we were only about 3 km behind them and could stop to help. Normally we could just call CAA, a service that we can call to help us out of our problems, such as flat tires, broken down vehicles, if you run out of gas or if you put gas in a diesel vehicle (hehe Mic) and they will tow you! The boys quickly changed the flat tire and we were off again.

In case you don’t know, heres how to change a flat tire (PS. you should know where your jack, wrench and spare tire is in your car, if you don’t know where they are, go look now):

Pull way off to the side of the road, put the car in park and apply the parking break.
Remove the hub cap.
Loosen the lug nuts, going around in a star position, while the car is still on the ground, do not jack the car up first otherwise you will not be able to loosen the lug nuts. Use the wrench to loosen the nuts off turning counterclockwise.
Jack the car up in front of a back popped tire, or behind a front popped tire. Jack up higher then you need to get the popped tire off because the spare will need more room to get put on.
Take the lug nuts off all the way. Once they are off do not lose them. Now you can pull the popped tire off the car.
Put the new tire on the car (the valve, where you add air, should face out).
Put the lug nuts back on the tire, working in a star pattern.
Lower the jack and finish tightening the lug nuts.
Put the hub cap back on the tire.