What you should know about changing a tire in an AWD vehicle

[Maurice]

READ your MANUAL!  A couple of nights ago, I had a flat tire at night on a highway. I wanted to change the tire myself of course but my wife insisted I call CAA since it was night and she thought it wasn't safe to do it myself. Reluctantly I agreed and it turned out to be a good thing.

Since I never read the manual, I would simply have installed the narrow spare & been on my way. But the CAA guy informed me that I needed to disable the AWD otherwise it could cause serious & expensive damage to the transfer case or something like that.

Sure enough, in the manual, it talked about it and it was a simple matter to disable it (this is a Subaru Forested by the way).

Anyway, if you own an AWD with one of these narrow spares, you may want to read your manual in case this applies to your car as well. This is not a flight deck building issue but you need all your money for the flight deck and not to fix a transmission

Incidentally, I had bought a hydraulic jack to replace the cheap crap they supply. As it turned out, 16" height was not enough to raise the Subaru enough to replace a tire. Even if I had tried, I would not have been able to change the tire. Live & learn I guess.

Maurice

[Nat Crea]

Tyre.... 

[Trevor Hale]

Good advice Mau, I would never have thought of that either.

Trev

[simlady/ Karen]

Sometimes, you just have to listen to the wife.

I know its hard but look on the bright side, you didn't ruin your car and have to listen to "I told you...." for the next 20 years.

BSD would never hear the end of it... 

[blueskydriver]

She is so right...I am still hearing about the time I drove onto a trailer with my wheelchair and I went up the ramps, but it was steeper than what I thought! I and the wheelchair flip over backwards, with me under the chair. We're talking heavy electric wheelchair.

She told me not to do it, but being the man I am, like any other, did it my way. Sad thing is, that was the second time! First time, I was alone and in which case, had no one to remind me of it... Needless to say, I listen now...okay, more then I used too...lol!

John