How I rotated my tires in 60 minutes

Published over 4 years ago

Just finished rotating the tires on my 2006 Toyota Corolla. I was able to do this in about 60 minutes, which I'm very proud of! I was even able to take some pictures of the process which I'll share with you as well.

First I parked my car on level ground. Its a bad idea to do any work on any car while it is parked on a hill or while it is moving. Duh.

Second I used the jack and tire iron that came with the Toyota to lift the car up off the front passenger side wheel. Toyota includes a little graphic on the jack that attempts to explain the spot where you are supposed to position the jack when lifting the car. Once the car was up a little bit, to be safe, I positioned a jack stand under one of the main frame support beams under the car. Just in case the rinky dink jack that came with the car gives way, the 9-ton jack stand might be able to hold it up.

Then I raised the car some more, but before the wheel was off the ground, I loosened up the lug nuts. After that, I raised the car off the ground. Once the lug nuts were off, the wheel should have come right off, but mine wasn't budging. Probably a terrible idea, I ended up sitting on the ground, and giving the wheel a powerful and swift stomp at the top of the tire. Without much fanfare or disaster, the wheel came off.

Then I made sure the jack stand was positioned correctly, and lowered the mechanical jack so that the car was being held up by the jack stand. I then moved to the rear passenger side tire and repeated the process. Again I had to kick the wheel off, and then put the tire I removed from the front onto the back. I've decided to always rotate my tires in a clockwise manner so that I don't end up reversing the process the next time I rotate!

To put the wheel on the car, I tighten all the lug nuts by hand, then tighten them up with the tire iron, round-robin style, where I tighten one, then tighten the one opposite it in the circle of lug nuts. After they are all tightened with the tire iron by hand, I lowered the mechanical jack down so that the car again is sitting on the wheel, no the jack. Remember though, that my front passenger side is still being held up by the jack stand. The lug nuts still needed to be tightened some more so I use gravity to help while I step on the tire iron to tighten each nut, repeating the order of tightening each nut opposite to the one I just tightened.

With one wheel switched out, I proceeded to do the same for the other three wheels, making sure to tighten the lug nuts again once the car had been lowered from the jack. On the last week, the only difference was that I didn't have to jack it up again. I was able to simply put the wheel on because it was still resting on the jack stand. Once the wheel was on, I had to raise the car with the mechanical jack to remove the jack stand.

I've been working on cars for many years, but I'm sure I've still got a lot to learn. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!