Boom! Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop. One of your tires just blew out. What now?
The advice is generally the same as in any emergency situation like this: Don’t panic. Do not jam on the brakes. Instead, slowly reduce the throttle while doing your best to maintain steering control. If a front tire blows, you will have less difficulty than if a rear tire blows, which causes greater instability. As safely as possible, pull off the road.
Fortunately, blowouts are rare today. Tires are remarkably durable. It is much more likely that you will get a flat when a tire loses air slowly. Flats usually are caused by things such as nail and screw punctures, poor sealing between the tire and wheel, a leaking valve or simply neglecting to maintain proper pressure. If you let your tire pressure drop too much, the bead may pull away from the rim, which can happen unexpectedly and cause sudden loss of pressure–the symptoms of a blowout.
What should you do if you get a flat?
If it happens while you are driving, get safely off the road. You can keep driving on a flat though you may have to fight the steering wheel a bit. Just don’t make any hasty moves. Sudden over-corrections can lead to a rollover or send you careering into oncoming traffic.
Signal your intentions and gently work toward the shoulder or a nearby parking lot.
Turn on your four-way flashers. (You know where the switch is, don’t you?) If you are on the shoulder of the road, place flares, reflectors or other warning devices behind your car so approaching motorists will be alerted to a problem ahead. Open your hood, which signals trouble even if it isn’t an engine problem.
Most of the time, you will discover a flat tire after the car has been sitting.
What is the right way to change a tire?
Put your transmission in park (or reverse if you have a stick shift) and set the parking brake. Next, find your car’s jack and lug wrench. Some cars also come with wheel chocks, but if yours does not, search for something like a brick or rock to wedge under the wheel on the opposite corner from the flat.
If your jack is not in the same location as the spare tire, check your owner’s manual. It may be behind a cover on the side, under a seat or even under the hood.
Hopefully, you located your jack and tools when you bought the car and have familiarized yourself with how they work. If you are mechanically inclined, you usually can figure these things out. Otherwise, read the instructions so you don’t hurt yourself. If you carry a can of instant tire inflator in your car, you can try pumping that flat up so you can drive to a service station or tire shop.
Tell the service person you used an aerosol tire product. Some have flammable compressed gas that can endanger the person servicing the tire–whether replacing it or repairing it. A spark could cause an explosion, so the service guy will need to vent the gas safely.
If the bead-to-seat (tire-to-wheel) seal is broken, don’t waste your time trying to inflate the tire with an aerosol. You have neither the pressure nor volume to reseat the bead. You will have to change the tire.
Locate the spot to put your jack. Don’t just slide it randomly under the car and start lifting. You could damage the floor pan, or worse, the brake or fuel lines. The lifting spot is often reinforced for jacking purposes. The location of the spot is in the owners manual and is usually on a label where the jack is stowed.
Once you have the jack in place and it has begun to lift the car the slightest bit, stop. While there is still weight on the wheel, loosen but don’t remove the lug nuts. You may have to remove a wheel cover to reveal the nuts. Look for a slot to insert the tool to pry it loose. If you have a locking lug nut, you will need the key.
You can now lift the car high enough not only to get the flat off the ground but also to be able to install the inflated spare.
Now you may finish removing the lug nuts and the flat. But what if it is stuck? Put the lug nuts back on the finger tight, lower the car and remove the jack. Then start the car and gently rock it from forward to reverse once or twice. This usually frees the stuck wheel from the hub, after which you can jack it back up and remove the wheel.
Install your spare and tighten the lug nuts by hand, then a bit more using the wrench.
Lower the car and remove the jack. Give the lug nuts a final snugging in a star-pattern sequence. On a wheel with five lugs you might start with the top one, then, going in a clockwise direction skip the next, but tighten the third. Keep repeating this sequence until all are tightened evenly. On wheels with four or six nuts, tighten them in a criss-cross pattern. This prevents you from bending the brake rotor or drum or the wheel.
To avoid warping a brake rotor (or a drum), have a technician tighten the lugs to the proper torque using a torque wrench.
You could stow the jack and tire, but if you’re like most of us, you will just toss everything in the trunk and stow it after you get the flat fixed or replaced. Remember to snuff those flares or gather the reflectors you deployed. Close the hood and don’t forget to remove the wheel chock before you drive off.
Of course, you could avoid most of the hassles by calling your favorite roadside assistance provider from your cellphone.
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Bob Weber is an ASE-certified Master Automobile Technician, having recertified every five years since 1978. Contact him at MMTribune@netscape.net.
