Hints & Tips: Changing a Tyre

Remember these are general instructions. Read your Ford owners manual for the correct procedure for changing a tyre on your Ford vehicle.  

If you experience a puncture while driving, slow to 5mph and drive yourself to a safe place away from other traffic.

Never go beneath a vehicle supported only by a jack. Do not attempt to change a tyre yourself on the hard shoulder of any busy road.

• Apply your handbrake and put your car into gear

  Turn off your engine and turn your hazard lights on. Put a brick or large stone under the wheels to be sure.

• Check your parts

  Check your spare tyre is suitably inflated, and make sure you have your wheel jack and brace/wrench.

• Find the jack

  Get down on your knees and look for small notches or grooves on the underside of your car, this is where you place the jack. The jack needs a hard surface underneath it. Once the jack is in place, slowly turn the handle until you remove some of the car’s weight from the flat tyre.

• Loosen the wheel nuts

  Place the wheel brace on one of the wheel nuts and with a straight arm and straight back, ‘crack’ each of the wheel nuts in turn and in an anti-clockwise direction. You can use your foot on the wheel brace if the brace is a good fit on the nuts and doesn’t slip off. Keep the wheel brace horizontal to the ground and you’ll find that your body weight alone is adequate to loosen the wheel nuts. Now, use the jack to lift the car so that it is someway off the ground to accommodate the fully inflated tyre.

• Remove the wheel

  You should be able to remove the wheel nuts one by one and gently lift the wheel from the car. If the wheel will not come free, it could be that corrosion has caused the wheel to stick. If this happens, put one nut back on the wheel and give the wheel a gentle kick in order to free it.

• Replace the wheel 

  Remove your spare wheel from the boot and place it against the car’s wheel assembly. By lining up the wheels’ holes first, it will make it easier to lift the wheel straight onto the car. Then tighten the nuts by hand. Tighten the bottom nut first to keep the wheel in place. Using the wheel brace, give all the wheels a small ‘nip’ to tighten them up. The idea is not to tighten the puts completely because the car is not completely stable while it is still on the jack.

• Remove the jack

  Unwind the jack slowly until the new wheel takes the weight of the car and then remove it. With the wheel brace horizontal to the ground, use the weight of your body to tighten all the wheel nuts.