Driving on the motorway can be incredibly dangerous and every motorist needs to know important safety procedures and how to react quickly to avoid danger. This includes knowing how to change a tire on the motorway so that you can avoid any kind of damage and quickly get back behind the wheel.
Causes of Blowouts
Tire blowouts can be incredibly frightening and often occur on the motorway because people are driving further, faster and often in heavily loaded vehicles. You can prevent a tire blowout with routine tire inspections to keep them in tip-top condition and by maintaining proper pressure. You should also avoid overloading vehicles and break up long drives.
Driving through a Blowout
If you do experience a tire blowout while on the motorway (or anywhere) then you also need to know how to drive through this and stop your car safely. The best practices include keeping a firm grip on the steering wheel, not slamming on the breaks and letting the vehicle come to a gradual stop.
Changing a Tire
Items needed:
- Wheel chock
- Jack
- Wrench
- Warning triangle
- Reflective jacket
- Torch (if changing at night)
- Gloves
- Tyre pressure gauge
- Car manual
- Plank of wood
1. First, you need to pull over safely away from traffic and somewhere that the vehicle is clearly visible. You should then put on your hazard lights, put on your reflective jacket and put out reflective triangles if you have them.
2. You should then use chocks to prevent the vehicle from rolling while lifted and then loosen the wheel nuts before jacking the car up – you can find excellent jacks from places like SGS. You can use the plank of wood to keep the jack stable. Once the car has safely been lifted 10-15cm off of the ground you can fully loosen the wheel nuts, remove them and pull the tyre free.
3. Now you can slide the spare wheel onto the hub bolts and replace the wheel nuts, simply tightening by hand for now. You can then gently drop the car back down until the spare is in contact with the floor before using a wrench to fully tighten the wheel nuts. You can then bring the car all the way back down, put everything in the boot and check the tire pressure of the new tire before rejoining the road.
Every motorist needs to know how to change a tire, particularly on the motorway as this can be highly dangerous and terrifying if you do not know what to do. This information should help to instil confidence and ensure that you have the tools and knowledge to manage a blowout and quickly get on the road again sooner rather than later.
