At work I had a couple of weeks of vacation that I needed to use up by the end of the year, so what I did was I booked off a bunch of Fridays and Mondays for the last 3 months leading up to the new year. I have been really enjoying the short weeks at work, as anyone would. But what do I do on my vacations days? Chores mostly, and errands. It's not exciting but anything is better than going into work - right? Well, usually - not always though. So anyway, on this most recent vacation day what I did was I changed our tires on our vehicles, from our all seasons to our winter snow tires. Doing the job myself saved us a bit of money - probably $100 or more, but to be honest it's not about the money as much as it's about the hassle of getting the shop to do it. I start thinking about how much of a pain it will be to set up the appointment; bring the car in; sit around at the location for an hour or so waiting for the work to be done, or coordinating with the shop to drop me off at home, then driving back to the shop to pick up the car again. It all becomes too much in my mind and I eventually just say "fuck it, I'll do it myself at my own schedule and pace." So here we go.
Note: I'm not a professional so this post is meant for entertainment purposes. If you plan to change your tires yourself, do so at your own risk.
Luckily my father in law has all of the tools I need to do this type of job.
Some car tires have a lock nut thats meant to stop people from steeling your wheels. It's pretty rare for car wheels to be stolen in my area, I've never actually heard of a single case, but maybe it happens on occasion? My car has a lock nut as you can see and a counterpart socket that acts like a key.
First I lifted the vehicle a little with a car jack, in order to take some pressure off of the wheel. I left the wheel touching the ground a little so that it wouldn't turn when I loosened the lug nuts. Then I lifted it fully to remove the lug nuts and take the wheel off entirely. When lifting the car you want to make sure that the jack is on part of the chassis (the metal frame of the car) and not on a softer metal, fiberglass or plastic part of the car that might break or bend when you lift the vehicle. This is fairly easy to figure out if you've been shown before but can be a little confusing if its your first time and you've never seen it done. I couldn't take a photo underneath to show it because the car was too low to the ground but I'm sure that there are 100's of videos online on the subject if needed. You can lift the car on the sill (which I can't describe) but that part can bend a little which creates a spot for rust to take hold, so I personally would not recommend it. It's better to lift on a flat part of the chassis if you can.
I ended up pinching my hand in the jack that day which hurt like a mother fucker.
Next I used a breaker bar to loosen the lug nuts. The breaker bar is basically just a long handled socket wrench that gives you a lot of leverage.
I used an impact gun to continue the removal process. You could just use the breaker bar to do this but the impact speeds things up.
Next the seasonal wheel comes off and the snow tire goes on. you can check your break pads and rotors (break disc) now while the wheel if off too. My front wheels were actually stuck on pretty good and I had a bitch of a time trying to get them off. Rust can build up and seize them on as they get older. I had to use some WD40 (it's all I had) and kick the wheel pretty hard to jar it off. You can use a sledge hammer at the back of the tire to knock it off as well, but you should look that method up online so you know where to hit the tire so as not to damage it.
My snow tires are on their own rims to make everything easier. You can buy snow tires without rims and put them into your existing ones each season but that's way more of a hassle in my opinion. Its more work for the mechanic so it cost more to change the tires, which you have to do twice each year in Canada for the different seasons. When the tires aren't on rims you can't do it yourself either, unless you happen to have access to a full shop to balance the tires and all of that jazz. It's easier to just pay the extra $200 or so upfront for the rims when you buy the snow tires and be done with it. That's just my opinion.
Next I tightened the lug nuts with the impact gun going in a star formation to make sure that the wheel went on straight. You don't want to over tighten the nuts with the impact here.
I used a torque wrench to finish tightening the nuts. A torque wrench is an adjustable socket wrench that allows you to tighten the nuts to a specific amount of torque without going over. It clicks when it reaches the limit you've set it to. Basically you want the nuts to be tight enough so that your wheel doesn't fall off while driving but not over tightened to the point of weakening or breaking the bolt. A torque wrench is really handy for changing tires - if not essential.
After doing this process for all four wheels I then checked the pressure on the tires and used an air compressor to fill them as needed.
And that is it. All done! A vacation day we'll spent. All I have to do now is my wifes vehicle... luckily hers is a newer car and it went a hell of a lot qjicker than mine.
