Saturday, July 21, 2012

Changing a tire on a Honda Civic


Although I love cars, I am not mechanically inclined at all.  My total "wrenching" experience includes changing tires, changing the oil, changing the battery, changing the air filter, and topping fluids.  This is the first time in our Honda's 80,000 mile life that it has suffered a flat tire.

First, the lower height reminded me of that Citroen XM when it was in the garage.  

The second thought is the plastic hub cap.  I thought I had to pry it off first, but apparently, it comes off when the lug nuts come off.  The lug nuts were tight and it took a pair of gardening gloves and a cup of coffee to loosen them.  I tried using the longer lug wrench out of the Phaeton but the Phaeton's lugs are smaller than the Honda's.

I was not prepared to read Arabic while changing the tire.




Few things piss me off more than asshats who drive 75 mph on the highway with these donut tires.  I'm driving straight to the tire shop.  All this manly work has inspired me to do a bit of cosmetic work on the Phaeton...


2 comments:

F1Outsider said...

I've been the offical tire-changer for my family since my teens. When the nuts are pretty tight I just stand on the wrench, grip the wheel-arch and pull downwards. It always does the trick.

Maxichamp said...

@F1O: The wrench that comes with the Honda is tiny.

Took it in to the shop. There was a nail. Because I bought the tires there in January, they fixed the tire for free!