Basics
Change a tire
The spare gets you to a shop. It is not the new tire, and the shoulder is a bad place to learn the jack.
A DadLane sheet. Fill the blanks, screenshot it, or print it.
DadLane
Be the dad who shows up
A DadLane sheet. The prompts are ours. Fill the blanks in your own words. Free to print. Not medical, legal, or financial advice.
The steps
Off the lane, then the spare. A short trip after.
Screenshot the card, or print it. The links below stay on the site.
- 01Hazards on. Ease out of the lane onto firm, level ground.
- 02Parking brake on. Chock the wheel on the opposite side if you have something that works.
- 03Loosen the lug nuts about a half turn before the car is in the air. Do not take them off yet.
- 04Jack only at the point the owner manual names.
- 05Raise the car, remove the nuts, mount the spare, and tighten the nuts by hand.
- 06Lower the car. Tighten the nuts in a star pattern.
- 07Read the spare itself. A compact spare prints its own speed and distance on the sidewall. That label outranks a guess. Then drive to a shop. It is not a week of driving.A compact spare is a short trip. The sidewall prints the speed and the distance. A number you invent is how the spare fails.
- 08At the shop, ask them to torque the lug nuts. A hand-tight spare is not the finished job.
- 09Narrow shoulder, bad weather, or nuts that will not move: stay in the car and call for help.
Also on this job
The same job, in the directory.
Official pages and the DadLane steps, with a next step on each card.
1 in this view
NHTSA
Tires
NHTSA on tires, including the pressure on the door sticker, not the number molded on the sidewall.
For Dads checking pressure or dealing with a flat, including the spare.
- Basics how-tos
- Safety
- Any stage
Best videos
Video for change a tire.
If a player is here, it is a real public video. If the line says Find on YouTube, that is a search, not a video DadLane picked. Then do the steps on the sheet.
Tire pressure, from NHTSA's guidance
No official NHTSA YouTube id was verified for this card. Search their tire guidance, then use the sticker on the driver door, including the spare.
YouTube search
Find on YouTube: NHTSA how to check tire pressure (opens in a new tab)
Sources
Go to the source.
These open in a new tab. They are the organizations named here, not ads. The video, when there is one, sits above this list.