Replacing or Fixing your damaged tyre

Replacing a tyre with a spare tyre

Changing a tyre can be a daunting experience for someone who has never done it before. However, despite everything, changing a tyre is quite an easy thing to do and should not take you more 30min to complete in total.

There are 2 types of spare tyres: a space saver tyre (otherwise known as a temporary tyre) or a full-size tyre. Temporary tyres are inadequate for long distance travel or speeding, here is why:

• Their tread is around 3 millimeters, normal tyres are eight to nine millimeters
• The temporary tyres structure and compound is softer

While driving, your temporary tyre will spin faster than the other tyres just to keep up, this quickly wears down the tread. Temporary/Space saver tyres should also not be driven above 80km/p simply because the space saver tyre affects your cars braking, grip, stability, steering as well as many others.

Step 1

Ensure your car is parked and switched off with the handbrake up.

Step 2

Remove the tools you will need to swop out one tyre for another.

• Wrench – to remove the wheel nuts
• Jack – to raise the vehicle off the ground
• Chock/Wedge – used to stop the vehicle from rolling, however, a brick will also work
• Lock Nut Key – to remove any specialized lock nuts
• Vehicle Handbook – to confirm where you place the jack under your car
• Tyre Pressure Gauge – to check the tyre pressure of your spare tyre

Step 3

Place a brick or wedge behind each of the wheels you will not be working on.

Step 4

Turning the wrench anti-clockwise, loosen the wheel nuts to a point where you can turn them by hand. Once you can turn them by hand, do not turn them anymore.

Step 5

Locate the jacking points that are closest to the tyre you wish to replace. Then, slowly raise the car until the tyre is ten to fifteen centimeters off the ground.

Step 6

Once your wheel is off the ground, remove the wheel nuts the rest of the way. Then remove the wheel by pulling it towards you

Step 7

You can now fit the spare tyre to your vehicle by lining up the holes of the spare tyre directly with the bolts coming from the wheel hub.

Step 8

Put your wheel nuts back to where they belong and tighten as much as possible by hand

Step 9

Last but not least, lower the vehicle, but stop just before the wheel touches the ground. Then take the wrench and fully tighten all the wheel nuts.

Step 10

And finally, you can lower your car all the way, pack away your tools and safely drive off to your nearest tyre dealer/garage

Repairing a tyre puncture

Another option would be a puncture repair kit that allows you to fill a puncture and pump your tyre. However, each and every time you use the sealant in the kit to repair a puncture it will most likely have to be replaced depending on the size of the sealant bottle.

As with spare tyres, this repair kit is not a permanent solution, you still need to be cautious of the speed you are driving as well as the distance.

The downside to having a repair kit is that if the damage is greater than 4mm on the tyre the repair will most likely not work

Step 1

As before, apply the handbrake your put your car in park. After which remove any unnecessary wait such as luggage or passengers from the vehicle. Then remove the repair kit from the vehicle as well as the compressor (the compressor is a 12V air pump)

Step 2

Remove the repair kit from your vehicle which should contain the following:

• A Compressor Pump – used to either pump up your tyre or pump sealant into the tyre
• Sealant – used to seal the puncture
• Nozzles – used to get the sealant into puncture hole and connect the compressor pump to the tyre to blow it up

Step 3

Take your compressors and plug it into the cigarette lighter socket inside your vehicle as a power source. Now one of two things can happen depending on the type of repair kit – first, the sealant can be squeezed into the tyre using one of the nozzles, alternatively it can be squeezed into the tyre using the compressor (this is dependent on the type of kit that you have)

Step 4

You may have to roll the car ever so slightly to ensure the sealant spreads all around the puncture

Step 5

After around five to ten minutes your sealant should be dry. You can now check your tyre pressure and if need be, use the compressor to pump up your tyre