Step by step:
- Park the car on a flat and solid surface and apply the parking brake. If possible, avoid parking on gravel. But if you have a solid garage jack, it usually works just fine.
- Loosen all wheel bolts half a round using a latmann arm, or wheel cross. If any of the bolts have become completely stuck, it is very useful to know this before installing on new wheels, so you can decide whether you want to drive to the workshop with a complete set or different types of tires.
- Lay out the tires to be fitted on, and inspect for damage and wear. Recommended minimum tread depth for summer tyres is 3mm and winter tyres is 4mm. The minimum legal tread depth for summer tires is 1.6mm over 2/3 of the tire surface, and 3mm over 2/3 of the tire surface for winter tires. Pay attention to whether there are tears or bullets on the sidewalls of the tire, or nails in the pattern path. If the tire seems to be completely free of air, you should look over it extra carefully. If your tyres have a direction of rotation (arrow on the side), make sure you place the tyres on the right side of the car before moving on. Check this page for tips on storing tires at home.
- Put the car in service mode if you have air suspensions. Most cars have hydraulic suspension, and do not need this. If your car has air suspension, you will typically find a menu option called “jack mode” in the car's settings.
- Lift the car with a garage jack. This will make the job much faster compared to using the lifting tool that comes with your car. Be careful where you place the jack, if in doubt you will find the correct location in the instruction book of your car. Never place the jack at any point other than the stated jack point if you have an electric car. Damage to the battery case is not cheap.
- Do not place any body parts under the vehicle as long as it is lifted off the ground. This one doesn't need any further explanation, does it?
- Change wheels. A nut puller makes the job of taking nuts on and off significantly faster. But make sure that it is not allowed to deliver more power than the traction torque indicated in the vehicle's instruction manual. This can both damage the bolts, rim and fastener. We recommend using a nut puller to screw the bolt all the way up, but using hand force and torque wrench for the last bit.
- Put the car down, and tighten the bolts with torque wrench. It is highly recommended to use a torque wrench for tightening wheel bolts. This minimizes the likelihood of damage to the rim or the bolts being too loose and unscrewing as you drive. Inexpensive torque wrenches can be purchased for a few hundredths, for example at Biltema. If you want to save a little more time, tighten all the wheel bolts to the last, so you don't have to move the power spout back and forth between the nut puller and torque wrench.
- Check the air pressure in the tires. It is nice to have a small battery-powered compressor in your car, but if there is little air in your tires, these can often fall short. Please note that these ones have a short operating time before they need to be cooled down for further use, so take the time to help. The air pressure can typically be found in the door post of the driver's door, or in the fuel cap. If you want to be as efficient as possible, turn on the compressor after you put the wheel down, before moving on to the next one. Then it gets to work and cools while you prepare the next deck.
- Tighten the wheel bolts after driving 30 to 50 kilometers. This is a very important step, regardless of whether you have changed the tires yourself or got a professional operator to do it. Too weakly attached bolts, or dust and sand on the bolts can potentially cause them to gradually loosen when driving, and in the worst case scenario, the wheel can become loose (but one will notice vibrations well before this happens). We recommend using a torque wrench also for post-tensioning.
When is it time to switch between summer and winter tires?
The optimal time for switching depends, of course, on local weather conditions, and where you plan to drive in the coming weeks. But a good rule of thumb is that now the temperature starts to stay stably below 7 degrees it's time to switch to winter tires. And vice versa, when the temperature is stable above 7 degrees one can put on summer tires.
