i'm ellen stanley for howdini.com and in this segment we'll be talking about changing a flat tire certainly it's inconvenient but we're going to walk you through it step by step lift up this cover to access the spare tire we'll unloosen it with the hold down then give it a couple good wrap make sure it's full of air worst thing you'd want to do is put on a flat spare then you'll remove the tire careful this can be quite heavy well we have our spare tire in our jack we've set our reflective warning signal out we've also chalked the wheel on the opposite side of the flat tire so we're ready to start changing it the first thing we'll do is jack the vehicle up you'll have to loosen the jack a little bit in order to get the handle off this particular model has the lug wrench built right in before we jack though we'd want to loosen the lug nuts because once it's jacked up it's going to be very difficult to get those lug nuts off this particular model has a hub cap which will just loosen those up doesn't take much because they're made out of plastic set the hubcap out of the way now you have access to the lug nuts loosen the lug nuts position yourself firmly pressing counterclockwise loosen the lug nuts not too loose just enough to crack them if it's a little stubborn position yourself over using your knee or your foot you can gain leverage now we're ready to jack it up this is the common scissors jack the screw moves in and out allowing the mechanism to move up and down and lift your car so as you turn it to the right it'll go up as you loosen it the jack will collapse allowing the car to come down now we'll position the jack you want to be sure to get the jack on a good part of the frame your owner's manual is a good place to find where to properly jack the vehicle you can raise it up by hand till it contacts the frame and is in good position we'll use the jack handle to raise the vehicle insert the end of the jack handle into the jack using it as leverage it'll help make the car go up easier remember to turn it clockwise to go up and counterclockwise to go down carefully jack the car up never stick your hands or your legs under the vehicle as the car can fall and cause damage jacking can take a while so be patient and cautious as you jack okay now that the car is jacked up now we'll take the lug nuts loose remember we already pre-loosened them when the car was on the ground making it easy as you notice it'll come right off now trying to do that while the car was jacked up would be very difficult remember to keep your lug nuts in close hand you don't want them rolling away in the grass because they'll be hard to find and that's what holds your tire on again we're turning them counterclockwise to get them loose or to the left we'll remove the flat tire set it over here out of the way now if there was heavy traffic area you wouldn't want to leave it in the street you might want to put it to the rear of the car grab the spare tire put it in position you're going to center the spare tire on the wheel studs that's where the lug nuts go so go ahead and do that lining it up you see it lines up pretty easy then install your lug nuts again clockwise is tight counterclockwise is loose so we'll tighten them up by hand as far as they'll go once the tire is centered lug nuts are hand tight take the lug wrench again turning it clockwise tighten the lugs until they're firm not too tight because remember your car is up on a jack we wouldn't want it falling off with too much leverage or force insert the jack handle back into the jack turning it counterclockwise again we're going to lower the vehicle again this will take some time but going down is a lot easier than going up if it seems to be going down easy you can just do it like this by doing it straight instead of having it angled but if it's too tough you can angle it and get the leverage that you'll need to lower the jack or to raise the jack turn the jack lower enough you can do it by hand now that it doesn't have contact with the frame and we can remove it now that the tire's on the ground we'll go ahead and give them that final tight we're going to start down here then move to the top one then back down over and back again a little star pattern making sure we have equal torque on the wheel studs okay well we have our spare tire on it's aired up we're ready to go a couple things to remember though is you want to put everything back in the trunk you don't want to exceed highway speed on this temporary spare make sure you get the big tire fixed and get you back on the road as soon as possible i'm alan stanley for howdini.com