I’ve done it many times. Never a big problem, though when it happened while driving my wife’s CRV the jack handle could be longer for better leverage.
As for training the younger generation, I agree. When my Saturn died after I bought new tires for it, I offered to swap them with the baldies one of my daughter’s friends was driving on. Turns out she had never changed a tire - after I showed her one one she did the other three, and is now an expert.
Spare tire? check
Proper air pressure in spare? check
Jack? check
Lug wrench? check
Shop towels? check
Should be good to go. 
Neighbor’s kid couldn’t break two of his lug nuts loose, even if he stood on the wrench. I had at least 100lbs on him, and they still wouldn’t budge. Used my 4-way lug wrench and a Mapp gas torch. Heating the wrench heated the lug nuts, and I didn’t have to worry about scorching his fancy wheels.
No problem, I’ve changed tires on my car before. And I have an air compressor in the back to inflate the spare if necessary.
Don’t stress yourself. There’s almost certainly a set of step-by-step instructions printed in the owner’s manual in your glove box. It should tell you where to find the spare, where to find the jack, and how to use these resources to get yourself back on the road.
And because the hypothetical in the OP is not as [del]far-fetched[/del] hypothetical as the ones in Skald’s threads involving Burroughs-Libby continua buggies and/or Suzie the Insufficiently-Evil-Former-Rhymer-Enterprises-Evil-Genius[sup]TM[/sup], you may wish to pull that sucker out some evening when there’s nothing on TV and treat yourself to a little light reading. 
And don’t forget to put it back in the glove box when you’re done.
P.S. I’ve been changing my own tires since 1974. Did it in the rain on the shoulder of the 405 the night my mother died. Not screwed at all.
ETA: The two events were unrelated.
Or, ya know, since you’ve got internet access while reading this, pull up the convenient YouTube video and watch the step-by-step.
I know from personal experience that automotive engineers like to play hide-the-jack and let’s-make-accessing-the-spare-a-Mensa-challenge.
Not screwed. I have a car charger for my cell phone…and I can actually change a tire. Not a boy scout, but totally prepared.
Somebody remind me: Why am I supposed to loosen the lug nuts before I jack up the car?
:::shrug:::
Why would I be screwed by a flat? I don’t understand the question.
Oh and for the record no one I have taught to drive would be screwed either, my class includes tire changing.
I would be OK for car, but normally I drive the scooter so I’d be SOL.
There’s no way that my wife, with her upper body strength of a wet noodle and the mechanical ability of a bowl of jello would be able to. We’ve got one of these cans of compressed air. I’d try that first then change the tire. I weigh 200 lbs so the nuts will come off one way or another.
Presuming this is a serious question.
A many wheels will spin freely when off the ground so there’s nothing holding back when you’re trying to break the lug nut loose. The tire just spins and spins and spins.
Some of us lazy types will use this to our advantage when putting the nuts back on. We spin the wheel counter clockwise and then just stab the wrench on the nut as the lug goes by and let it tighten itself.
that stuff is evil. I can’t remember how many times I got blasted in the face with that noxious shit when dismounting a tire to fix it. Of course the asshole customer didn’t mention he used Fix-a-flat until after I got a face full of it.
No we don’t. If something on your car is not as easily accessible as you think it should be, it’s most likely because it couldn’t be put anywhere else.
If you’re being asked to repair a tire, and the tire is holding air pressure when it’s presented to you, doesn’t that provide a clue that SOMETHING was used to restore its ability to do that? Seems that might be a cue that asking for the information might be a good idea.
It SHOULD be volunteered, though; no question about that.
Yes I can change a tire and have. I also travel with extras, like portable compressor, in each car.
No problem, with a caveat.
Last time I changed a tire, the wheel had quite solidly fused to the mounting plate. I had successfully jacked the car and removed the lugbolts, but could not remove the wheel. I pulled on it, kicked it, and did everything else I could think of with no success. So I called dad. He suggested, in this order:
It turned out that all that was still not enough, but it finally loosened once I did a bit of an S-turn.
Since then I’ve applied anti-seize to the mounting plate and furthermore know what to do in case it happens again.
As for overtightened lugs: ALWAYS retorque them if anyone has touched them. Not only will repair places torque them to infinity, but they will happily cross-thread them all the way down the post. This happened to me and I’m glad I discovered it in my garage instead of the side of the road.
So buy a $25 torque wrench at Harbor Freight and retorque them if you get any work done. You don’t even need to use a jack if you do them one at a time, though for best results you should remove all the lugs and then progressively retighten them in a star pattern.
Assuming I was driving a regular car, no problem.
If I had a blowout in my BMW, I’d be screwed and so would you. There’s no spare, just a can of slime and a can of air.
I love fancy cars!!
That’s why I do my own rotations. My mechanic over-torques by 20 lb/ft out of caution (we chatted about this – it’s his shop policy, not just a lazy employee with an air gun).
Normally that would not be an issue, for I carry a breaker bar (and at home I have a 550 lb/ft air impact), but even with the best of care (sharp impacts rather than constant force) both he and I regularly crush a nut cap or two when the nuts were over-torqued. Usually the breaker can get the now capless nut moving, but even then it sometimes isn’t enough, necessitating a heat wrench (a.k.a. a torch), which is problematic given the proximity to the the rim, and due to the risk of heat stress necessitates stud replacement. A few times the capless nut has stripped, resulting in having to use a nut remover. Once even that didn’t work, and I had to use a hole saw, which comes under the heading YTIKCUFYTIKCUFYTIKCUF KCUF KCUF KCUF!
So with the greatest of respect to my mechanic, who really is a terrific mechanic, I disagree with him on torquing of lug nuts on my vehicle, and instead do it myself to factory spec. No over-torque, no friction-modifiers, no mantras at midnight under a full moon. Just factory spec.
The very last car I sold professionally was a BMW. Thanks for validating my dislike!
I don’t think most people need to know how to change a tire, given that tires seldom fail these days as compared to years gone past, and that most folks seldom drive where other’s don’t drive. It’s really just a trade off of the risk and embuggerance of learning to replace a tire and then actually replacing one in the field, against the risk and embuggerance of having to wait for assistance. Breakdowns happen, for any number of reasons, so really its just a matter of picking where one wants to sit on the risk and embuggerance scale.
What does it take to replace a flat? A bit of patience waiting for assistance or having a nature hike, or a bit of knowledge and effort doing it yourself. Both work quite nicely in most circumstances.
Well, I thought I did. 
Tire went flat. Changed it. Then another tire went flat. It was one of those days.