# Do the drivers in your household know how to change a tire? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 29, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776 "2004-02-29T18:44:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/41 "2004-03-02T01:12:54Z")
When I was a kid, I learned to change a tire by watching my dad. Of course, things have changed a bit since then. What’s funny is I once showed one of my sisters how to change a flat. I was about 5 years old at the time and she’s 19 years older than me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/42 "2004-03-02T01:52:24Z")
Yep. My dad taught me how to change a tire, check the oil and various fluids, how to add said fluids if needed, and how to drive a stick shift. Best things he ever did, in addition to basic home repair - like being able to turn off the water at main and electricity at the box and how to light a pilot light. (I should add that I’m a girl) ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/43 "2004-03-02T04:24:21Z")
Bibliocat, yes, you should mention that you are a girl because too many fathers STILL forget to teach these things to _daughters_. Do they think there is an auto-repair genie, or do they WANT their little girls to marry the first idiot with a socket wrench and a MAPS cylinder that comes alongs? ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/44 "2004-03-02T05:51:52Z")
> [@](#): > > …What if you can’t locate the nail, or can’t get enough arm into the wheelarch to pull it out?.. - - - Well to locate the nail, just put some more air in the tire, and you can usually hear where it is leaking–especially if you run your hand over the tire. I have a bicycle pump too, remember? 😃 - The “not enough space in the wheelarch” problem I haven’t had. You _could_ just buy bent-nose pliers if you were really worried about that. … > [@](#): > > If you can’t: > > - change a tyre > - jump start a car > - push start a car > - change a fan belt (using nylons/panty hose if necessary) > you shouldn’t be driving, IMHO. - Here’s a fun fact: most people I have ever seen don’t know how to jump-start a car properly: did you know that you’re supposed to _disconnect the dead vehicle’s battery_? You should hook the running vehicle’s power up to the dead vehicle’s _starter_, and **nothing else!** The dead car should start up and run just fine with no battery attached at all, and you should make sure by letting it run with no battery for at least 2-3 minutes. If you “charge up” the dead battery, their alternator could be totally non-functional and the car would run for a couple minutes by firing off the battery alone --but then the car will just stop running again, a mile down the road. And hooking up a running alternator to a totally-dead battery can destroy the alternator on the “running” car-- alternators come with instructions that tell you NOT TO HOOK IT UP TO A TOTALLY DEAD BATTERY! - Also, automatic cars can’t be push-started that I have ever seen. - And modern engines use serpentine flat belts that pantyhose does not substitute well for… And in fact I recently had a breakdown due to the belt–my serpentine fan belt came off, because the belt tensioner was old and wouldn’t hold tight enough. So having another fan belt wouldn’t have helped much; without a new bent tensioner and the tools to put it on, any belt wouldn’t have stayed on anyway. And the belt was in good condition, but the tensioner was old, and you can’t really tell that by looking at it. ~ ---
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/45 "2004-03-02T07:37:59Z")
> [@DougC](#): > > - Here’s a fun fact: most people I have ever seen don’t know how to jump-start a car properly: did you know that you’re supposed to _disconnect the dead vehicle’s battery_? You should hook the running vehicle’s power up to the dead vehicle’s _starter_, and **nothing else!** The dead car should start up and run just fine with no battery attached at all, and you should make sure by letting it run with no battery for at least 2-3 minutes. If you “charge up” the dead battery, their alternator could be totally non-functional and the car would run for a couple minutes by firing off the battery alone --but then the car will just stop running again, a mile down the road. And hooking up a running alternator to a totally-dead battery can destroy the alternator on the “running” car-- alternators come with instructions that tell you NOT TO HOOK IT UP TO A TOTALLY DEAD BATTERY! DougC, I’ve never heard this before. Is this the procedure described in your owners manual? I find it interesting that the [National Safety Council](http://www.nsc.org/library/facts/batjump.htm), [Battery Council International](http://www.batterycouncil.org/jumpstart.html), [Pep Boys](http://www.pepboys.com/learning_center/car_care/articles/jump_start.html) and the [Nebraska](http://www.autoclubgroup.com/nebraska/autos/car_maintenance/articles.asp?articleID=29§ionID=1) and [Michigan](http://www.autoclubgroup.com/michigan/autos/car_maintenance/guides/jump-start.asp) AAAs among others all say to connect the jumper cables between the two batteries with the final connection to the engine ground of the car being jumped. I wouldn’t trust Pep Boys if they were the only ones saying this, but they aren’t the only ones and you are the first person that I have heard claim that one should drive without a battery rather than jump a weak one. Besides which, I’ve had enough times where a car couldn’t be jumped because the battery was too weak; I’ve never tried to jump a car without a battery. I could see how an internally shorted battery might load down an alternator, but I doubt that a battery would short so quickly and so severely that it would kill the alternator the first time that the car was jumped. Beyond that (and ignoring that the battery can act as a sort of filter for the charging system), what do you do with the loose battery cables to keep them from touching grounded parts? Re: the OP, my wife can change her own tires, but I think she would rather make a service call. As for myself, I’ve pretty much rebuilt my truck by now. I have changed tires on it, but I usually get lazy and just use fix-a-flat. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/46 "2004-03-02T09:06:43Z")
> [@](#): > > DougC, I’ve never heard this before. Is this the procedure described in your owners manual? - - - No, it isn’t in the owner’s manual, but it’s the best way to do it. A car can have a “dead battery” for at least two reasons: a battery that won’t hold a charge, and an alternator/electrical system that is damaged and cannot charge the battery anymore. If the alternator is damaged, charging the battery up and sending the person on down the road is only going to get them a couple more minutes at most, because the engine’s going to be firing off the battery and not re-charging it. And if their battery is simply depleted from, say, having left their headlights on, then hooking _your_ alternator up to it is bad, because of the lack of electrical load, that will hurt _your alternator_–it can be nearly the same as running a short, and that can destroy your alternator as well. …So un-hooking the battery from the dead car accomplishes two things at once: it protects the good car’s alternator from operating without a load, and it allows you to detirmine if the problem with the non-starting car is just the battery, or something else. Because once the dead/batteryless car is started, it should stay running, _even with no battery attached_–as long as the rest of the electrical system is working well enough. There’s a certain amount of self-preservation instinct here: if after the dead car is started, the owner wants to hook up their alternator, then fine, feel free–after your car is disconnected, they can only damage _their own_ alternator. > [@](#): > > I find it interesting that the National Safety Council, Battery Council International, Pep Boys and the Nebraska and Michigan AAAs among others all say to connect the jumper cables between the two batteries with the final connection to the engine ground of the car being jumped. - I don’t doubt that they say that–but I can say that they have made a poor choice to do so, in that it is a tradeoff of convenience for the risk of ending up with _two_ non-starting vehicles instead of _one_. Doing it the way I noted ensures that the good car does not suffer any damage, and also tells you something about the electrical condition of the non-starting car. And I can say that all of the dozen or so alternators I have replaced or seen replaced had a instructions that explicitly warned not to jump start a car that had a totally-dead battery, because it can ruin the alternator. ~ ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Serpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@Silver\_Serpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Serpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/47 "2004-03-02T14:38:10Z")
Of course I do! I’m a female that makes regular cross-country trips all by my lonesome. Fix-A-Flat rocks. I also have a plug set. I’ve fixed two flats. One only needed FaF. The other needed a plug. I can’t get to my tires without taking them off, so I had to take it off to plug it. I’m never far from a gas station, so I just pull into one, plug my tire, steal the free air, and I’m on my way. I got some amazed looks when I fixed my tire, being a 20-year-old female. The Manly Men just looked at me like, “Holy crap, she knows how to fix a flat? Damn.” ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/48 "2004-03-03T00:26:03Z")
> [@](#): > > So un-hooking the battery from the dead car accomplishes two things at once: it protects the good car’s alternator from operating without a load, and it allows you to detirmine if the problem with the non-starting car is just the battery, or something else. Because once the dead/batteryless car is started, it should stay running, even with no battery attached–as long as the rest of the electrical system is working well enough. There’s a certain amount of self-preservation instinct here: if after the dead car is started, the owner wants to hook up their alternator, then fine, feel free–after your car is disconnected, they can only damage their own alternator. I’m a little confused by this. If you jump start a car with a battery disconnected yeah it will run, until it’s turned off, Then your back in the same boat. You could drive home, then hook it up to a trickle charger, but not everybody has those. You need to get the battery charged eventually to start on it’s own again. And if you are suggesting they reconnect the battery on the running car, that is a bad idea. The voltage regulator will not like the sudden load change and cause spikes that can fry important stuff like the computer. I really don’t see the benefit in disconnecting the battery. If your afraid, then don’t give a jump, but I have never heard that as advice before. ---
**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/49 "2004-03-03T13:43:36Z")
> [@Rabid\_Squirrel](#): > > After 10 mins, I realised that you’re supposed to use the spare :smack:. I use the lift at work, personnaly, but you might want to think about investing in a set of jackstands. For what most shops charge to rotate tires, you can buy a set of inexpensive stands. Serious under-car work should be done using a lift or professional-grade set of stands but the el-cheapo stands suffice for wheel and brake work. I taught both my sisters to change tires, belts, and hoses and made sure they knew to keep the spare maintained and extra belts and hoses in the trunk. The older sister routinely ignores me and has been stranded; my baby sister took me at my word and has never been stranded by a simple problem. Speaking of belts, did you know that on many cars with serpentine belt systems, the OEM lug wrench can be used to load the idler pulley so you don’t need any tools to change the belt? ---
**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/50 "2004-03-03T14:02:24Z")
> [@badmana](#): > > I don’t know if my sister can change a tire. I’m not sure she has the physical strength to do it (she’s 5 foot, 100 lbs). Trust me, it is all a matter of determination. My baby sister is only 4’9" and about 90lbs and she has no trouble loosening lug nuts. 90lbs standing on a 12" lug wrench is 90ft-lbs, enough to loosen them most of time. If that doesn’t work, she just has to bounce on it and that has worked even on nuts that had been applied with an impact wrench set at full torque (did I mention there was a test when I taught her? 😃 ). She also had trouble lifting the spare out of the back of her carf but then she just jumped in with it and easily lifted it out of the spare tire well. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/51 "2004-03-03T14:58:04Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m a little confused by this. If you jump start a car with a battery disconnected yeah it will run, until it’s turned off, Then your back in the same boat. You could drive home, then hook it up to a trickle charger, but not everybody has those. You need to get the battery charged eventually to start on it’s own again. And if you are suggesting they reconnect the battery on the running car, that is a bad idea. The voltage regulator will not like the sudden load change and cause spikes that can fry important stuff like the computer. I really don’t see the benefit in disconnecting the battery. If your afraid, then don’t give a jump, but I have never heard that as advice before. - - - For this example, we need to establish a perspective here: _YOUR_ vehicle is running fine, and _someone else’s_ won’t start, and they want to get a jump-start from you. Okay? - Now–the point here is that hooking _any_ alternator to _any_ uncharged battery is bad–it makes no difference if the two are in separate vehicles. So if you jump-start another vehicle, if they want to risk frying their own alternator, that is their decision–but you don’t want them frying yours right there and then, because then both of you will need tow trucks to get home. Get it? ----\>Yes it is true: assuming that their battery is still good, then it will need to be trickle-charged–because hooking it up to any alternator can fry _that_ alternator. They may choose to do that; it’s their own decision. You cannot stop them from ruining their own alternator but you can certainly stop them from ruining yours–and doing it this way is better for the owner of the non-starting car as well, because it demonstrates if the problem is within the battery or elsewhere in the electrical system. If the only problem was that the battery is bad or uncharged, then the vehicle will run perfectly fine without a battery attached–_and they’re going to need that battery either trickle-charged or replaced if it’s bad, either way_. If the problem is the alternator or some other electrical part, then the car won’t run for more than a few seconds after being disconnected from the other vehicle–_and charging up their battery would only get them another couple minutes of driving time anyway_. … -And you really only need to disconnect one terminal from the battery, after all… ~ ---
**Author:** ![Sangre\_Azul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@Sangre\_Azul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangre_Azul)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776/52 "2004-03-03T21:24:49Z")
I’ve never had a blow out on the road, but I’ve changed flats before . The first time my mother borrowed my new car, she returned it to me with a flat. \*Gee, thanks, mom. So, you felt it as you went over the nail? Mmm hmm. And people were hailing you at red lights to tell you you had a flat? I see. So you decided to drive back to me, yes? Oh, perfectably reasonable. \* :rolleyes: (She had a cellphone. I had a cellphone. She should have called me.) And it didn’t end there - she had returned my car while I was at work (we swapped cars for the day, as her RV was much too unwieldy to drive to the hair salon). I knew the tire was flat, but put off changing it until the end of the day… which for me, meant after most of the office had already gone home. As I hadn’t changed a flat before in this particular car, it took a moment to locate the jack. I gave it a tug… and then another… and then I was outright swearing because I couldn’t get the damn thing out of my car - the bolts holding it in might as well have been welded together. I was all alone in the parking garage, with a flat tire and a shiny new car jack mocking me from its secure little cubby hole inside the trunk. So, back to the office I trudged, to borrow a jack. Now, despite being 26, I look like a 16 year old boy and have a certain delicacy to my build, and especially my hands, that makes most people assume I can’t even unscrew a _pickle jar_. Anyway, I found a couple guys I knew to help me, but they insisted they try to remove _my_ jack, rather than lend me one of theirs. “Azul, we’ll help you out,” they smirked. “Don’t want you to hurt your hands.” Cut to the garage again, now with two guys swearing at the jack and one fighting back "I-told-you-so"s. In the end, I ended up borrowing one, after all. I continued to have my revenge on my comrades, as none of them were able to loosen the lugnuts. They grudgingly deferred to me as a “last resort”, and I popped those suckers right off. I may have bony fingers, but there’s nothing wrong with my wrists! The next day, I had the guys at the tire shop remove the jack for me. “Holy crap, no one would have been able to take that out by themselves!” It now rattles in the trunk as I drive, but I can at least use the damn thing, should my mother ever borrow my car again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-drivers-in-your-household-know-how-to-change-a-tire/231776.md?page=2)