It is important for a person who drives to know how to change the tires on a car. You never know when or where you might have a flat tire. You could be in a location where road service is not available. Sometimes, you are in a hurry. That is when road service tells you that there are five other calls in front of yours, so you will need to wait a few hours. If you live in a location with harsh winters, you may need to change all four wheels every fall for better traction and every spring for better mileage. If that service is not in your budget then you will need to know how to change the wheels on a car yourself.
If your tires have hubcaps, you will need to remove the hubcap to expose the nuts that you need to remove.
Loosen all of the nuts with a crowbar or socket, but do not remove them until after you jack the car up. The wheels will spin if you try to loosen the nuts after you jack the car up.
Look under the car and locate the metal frame. Place your jack directly underneath the frame. Now you need to raise the jack. Some jacks require an up and down motion and others require turning a knob to raise them.
Raise the jack until you are just able to spin the wheel. It isn't necessary to have a lot of height and it can be dangerous if the vehicle slips off from the jack. The tire only needs to be high enough to pull it off and put another wheel back onto the vehicle.
Remove all of the nuts. If they are quite loose, you may be able to turn them by hand, remember to turn counter-clockwise to loosen. If you removed a hubcap then place the nuts into the hubcap so they do not become misplaced.
Pull the wheel off and place it out of your way. Pick up the new wheel, align the bolts with the holes, and then push it on. Place all of the nuts back onto the bolts and finger-tighten the nuts.
Lower the jack putting the vehicle back onto the ground. Now use your crowbar or socket to tighten all of the nuts as tight as you can. Do not skip this step or your wheels can fall off while driving down the road. Repeat these steps with each wheel you need to change.
