DIY tyre swap

[Carr]

Hi Bros,

How to determine when to change tyre if you don't know the mileage taken up by your set of tyre especially driving a used car. Currently it is a corrolla on Yokohama S205 175/70R14.

 

What the visual signs to look out.

 

Thanks man!!

[Kytl68]

Most obvious is the thread depth .. think some of the manufacturer mentioned nothing less than 2mm ... another point is if you feel road holding is bad in dry or wet ... TIME TO CHANGE !!!!

 

DIY tyres swap is easy so long as you have 2 jacks and a wheel balancing machine !!! Save the effort and send it to the expert

[Kooler]

Pls dun do it yourself,I just wreck my undercarrage when I swapped both my rear wheels to front.It seems dat only those in this line would know how to properly mount and secure your wheels,dun be like me wanna save $20 and waste $200-$300 instead.

[Guinness]

Pls dun do it yourself,I just wreck my undercarrage when I swapped both my rear wheels to front.It seems dat only those in this line would know how to properly mount and secure your wheels,dun be like me wanna save $20 and waste $200-$300 instead.

 

er, just outta curiosity, how did you 'wreck' your undercarraige?

 

DIY tire swap is easy provided all your wheels are already balanced. If not, go to a shop to get your tires balanced and swapped while you're at it. If they are, then you just need a jack, jack stands and preferably a torque wrench to help you tighten the wheel nuts to the right torque. You could go by 'feel' though but I kinda think most people tend to overtighten.

[Kooler]

Well it seems dat there's a piece of rubber ring spacer in each wheel and I did not noticed it as I took out the front wheel and immd fit onto the back without knowing dat the the back wheel spacer is stuck onto the wheel while the front wheel spacer remained on the car chassis.Thus when i placed the back wheel(Remember the spacer is obn the wheel?) on the front,my front wheel has 2 spacers and could not really sit onto the rotors.

I drove off to JB and enroute I could feel my steering vibrating violently when hit 80km/hr,it was after a few KM when my friend's car pulled up alongside and motioned me to stop.We nuts still can be tightened and we continued our journey to JB.

 

Then on the Malaysian highway,a Malaysian MPV horned me and made a hand signal pointing to my wheel,I stopped the car,tighten the nuts somemore(Funny still can tighten somemore) and went back to Singapore and my frd tried to tighten the nuts by stepping on the wrench,the nuts gave way(Screw threading busted)

 

I went to a tire shop the next day and was shown the double spacers and 2 of my wheel nuts threading was half gone and 1 was totally gone.

Then I went to my workshop where I was told my lowerarm bar was gone due to the vibrations.Can shake the wheel when my car is jacked up.

[Guinness]

that sure is a terrible experience with tire rotation.

 

i'm not sure what's this rubber ring spacer you mentioned. spacers (the kind u use in case the offset of the rims aren't appropriate for your car) aren't made of rubber. would sure like to know what's that.

 

stepping on the wrench is really a bad idea. to take them out from a previously overtightened nut is perhaps excusable but to tighten - er that's really way more torque than required as i'm sure you've found out. if you read the torque specs for wheel nuts, you'll be surprised that they aren't so high - perhaps like 110 NM only.

 

but hey, look on the bright side, at least now you know what to look out for when rotating tires! :P

[Kooler]

It was an expensive lesson,lucky the wheel never fall off...

 

The spacer is not really made from rubber but some kind of plastic.

Edited June 12, 2004 by Kooler

[Johnchong]

Not all cars have spacers for the wheels rite?

 

I swapped tires for my Corolla recently. Swapped front and rear. Din see any spacer rings (I checked inside of rim).

 

The cars still working fine after so many weeks, 130kmh also still smooth...

[Lufu]

not all cars have the so called spacer. I did mine DIY also, running for 1yr or so without problem.

[Zombie]

agree, pay $20, the shop clean your rims for you, balance your tyres, check the pressure, refill the nitrogen, and rotate for you..... why bother to do on your own....

 

i find that it is not an easy job...... at least I dun have all the tools they have.... balancing machine????

[S2077s]

hi all...

 

the rubber/plastic spacer ring.....watever u called it is actually the "center ring". Different cars have differecnt diameter wheel hubs which support the wheels beside the lug nuts. As for rims....differenct rims also have different bore diameters to accomodate the protuding hub from the car. Thus.....a center ring (which can be made from hard plastics to metal) is used as a accomodating spacer to snug fit the two different diameters together. For e.g. on a Nissan Sunny, hub is 59.1mm, i wanna fit a rim with with bore diameter of 73.1mm... thus i need this center ring with an outer diameter of 73.1mm and an inner diameter of 59.1mm to fill the space in between. This way, your wheels will sit on the 4 lugs tightened by the screws as well as a befitting center bore on the wheel hub, making the wheels more stable and less prone to vibrations.

 

My car has a pair of 5mm spacers between the mounting face of the rims to the hub....therefore the center rings are not in place at all..... though it is solely resting only on the 4 lug bolts, there isn't really much problems. Of course...do make an inspection once in a while for any physical perculiarities.