When your car goes wrong, a sense of terror can set in; especially if you’re on a particularly busy main road. After all, you’ve likely spent a lot of money on your vehicle, whether it’s through AA’s car finance services or you’ve paid in full. That said, every component comes with a cost, and when one of them breaks down we can’t always afford to hire the professionals to work up a fix.
A woman’s guide to changing a tyre easily on the road will be precisely the same as a man’s. The same jobs need doing to the same standard, and your experience of actually doing them will be no different to your male counterparts. It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in!
Get Ready
When your car suffers a flat tyre on the road, it’s important that chaos doesn’t descend. After all, faulty car components cropping up during transit would cause a serious crash for many drivers. That said, there should be no sense of panic or urgency; just pull over well away from traffic, park on even ground (so your car doesn’t roll while you’re working on it) and stay calm. Then, once you’ve gathered your thoughts, it’s time to gather your things too!
You can’t remedy a flat tyre situation without the necessary tools and equipment. A spare tyre will be needed, along with a torch, a tyre iron, a jack and even a towel so you’re not lying around in the dirt. You may need cutters and a wrench to free the faulty tyre from the vehicle, so whip those out too. Switch off the engine, then fit your jack under the bodywork of your vehicle and raise it until your vehicle is well off the ground.
Remove the Faulty Tyre
Start by laying out your towel or blanket for you to lie on, so that you’re not getting your clothes dirty. Then, on closer inspection with your torch, you’ll find that the tyre is kept in place on the wheel by a series of nuts, and they all need to be unhinged one by one so that you can cleanly and easily remove the tyre. Work your way through them with your tyre iron and leave the top nut until last, so you’re not awkwardly dismantling the tyre or having complications lifting it away.
The New Tyre
Replacing a tyre is the kind of task that sounds a lot harder than it is. Now all you need to do is to place the new tyre on! To do that, you simply need to do a complete and utter reversal of what you just did. Place the new tyre on and tighten the nuts, starting from the top now and working down. You may need to use the jack here to raise the vehicle slightly more as you fit it on, just to make the whole process easier and less strenuous. Job done!