Flat Tire, Spare in the Trunk: We Put It On So You Don't Have To

A tire change is simple when it goes right and dangerous when it goes wrong, which is why most people would rather not do it on a shoulder with traffic going by. Here is what the call looks like from our side so nothing surprises you.

On the phone. Where exactly is the car: a cross street, a parking lot and which side of the building, a driveway address. What is the car, year, make, and model, because that tells us whether it has a spare at all and whether the lug nuts need a special key. And where would you go next: a tire shop, home, or work. If you know the spare is flat or missing, say so and we bring the flatbed instead of making two trips.

When the truck arrives. The driver parks to shield the car from traffic with the lights on, chocks a wheel, and finds the jack point in the owner's manual or by sight. He breaks the lug nuts loose while the tire is on the ground, lifts the car, pulls the flat, mounts the spare, and tightens the nuts in a star pattern so the wheel sits flat. Then the car comes down and the nuts are torqued. He checks the spare's pressure with a gauge; spares lose air sitting in a trunk for years, and a low spare is almost as useless as the flat.

Before you drive off. The driver tells you what kind of spare you have, how fast and how far it is safe to drive on it, and whether the flat tire looks repairable or finished. The flat goes in your trunk. If anything about the wheel, the hub, or the lug studs looks wrong, he says so and the tow becomes the safer choice. The what to tell us section on the towing page covers the phone call in more detail.

Wheel locks are the single most common reason a roadside tire change turns into a tow. Here is how to avoid that, and what happens if the nuts will not come off for other reasons.

Find the key now. The lock key is a socket with a unique pattern inside, and the car usually came with it in a small bag in the glove box, with the jack, or in the trunk's side pocket. If a tire shop did the last work on the car, check that they put it back; a missing key is often the shop's doing. Keep it where you can tell the driver, because he cannot remove a locking nut without it except by destructive methods that risk the wheel.

If the key is lost. Dealers can sometimes supply a replacement from the code on the lock set's card. At the roadside, the driver's options are a tow to a tire shop that can remove the lock, or, on some lock patterns, a removal tool that damages the lock nut but not the wheel. He will tell you which applies and will not guess.

Seized and over-torqued nuts. Road salt fuses steel nuts to studs over a winter or two, and an impact gun at a tire shop can tighten nuts far past specification. The driver uses a breaker bar and proper technique; if a nut will not move without risking a snapped stud, the car goes on the flatbed to a shop that can deal with it on a lift. A snapped stud at the roadside is a bigger repair than the flat.

Stripped or cross-threaded studs. If the last person to put the wheel on crossed a thread, the nut may spin without tightening. The driver will not send you off on a wheel that is not properly fastened. That is a tow, and the stud gets replaced at a shop. The light duty towing page covers what happens when the car rides instead of rolls.

Tow truck drivers see the aftermath of roadside tire changes that went wrong more often than anyone should, and almost all of them involve someone crouched by a wheel on the traffic side of a car. Here is what the driver does and what he will ask of you.

Before you call. If the car still moves, get it as far right as it will go, onto the shoulder, into a driveway, or around the corner onto a side street. A tire change in a quiet lot is a ten-minute job; the same change on a shoulder with cars passing at speed is a hazard for both of you. Hazards on. At night, the dome light on too.

When the truck arrives. The driver positions the truck behind and slightly outside the car so its lights and its body are between the work and the traffic. Stand on the side away from traffic, behind a guardrail if there is one, and well back from the car. Do not stand behind the car, where a distracted driver hits it. Do not stand between the car and the truck.

New York's Move Over law. Drivers are required to slow down and move over for a tow truck working with its lights on. Many do; some do not. The driver's setup accounts for the ones who do not, which is why he will ask you to stay where he can see you.

If you cannot get off the road. A flat in a live lane, on a narrow road, or in a spot with no shoulder is not a place to change a tire. Stay belted in, hazards on, and tell the person who answers exactly that, so the right truck and the right setup come. The shoulder safety section on the towing page has the full list.

Light commercial vehicles get flats more than cars because they carry weight, run on job sites with nails and screws in the dirt, and often run tires past the point a private owner would. Here is how the roadside call works for a working truck.

At the job site. The driver changes the tire where the truck sits if there is room to work safely and the ground will hold a jack. Loaded vans are heavy; the driver uses the right jack and the truck's own lift points, and if the load makes the change unsafe, the van goes on the flatbed loaded.

Spares on work trucks. Many vans carry a full-size spare underneath on a winch that has not moved in years. Cutaways and box trucks often have no spare at all. Tell us what the vehicle is and whether it has a spare so the right truck comes.

Dual rear wheels. A flat on an inner dual is not a roadside change in most cases; the outer wheel has to come off first and the nuts are torqued to truck specification. Those go to the tire shop on the heavy duty side when the vehicle is beyond light duty weight.

Fleet accounts. One call, one company, and a driver who knows which tire shop your fleet uses. The commercial accounts section on the towing page explains how that is set up, and equipment hauling covers moving the machines the trucks carry.

The yard sits on the Nassau–Queens line, so the south shore and southeastern Queens are closest: Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Elmont, Franklin Square, West Hempstead, Hempstead, Malverne, Rockville Centre, Oceanside, Baldwin, Freeport, Long Beach, Island Park, and the Five Towns around Cedarhurst, Lawrence, Woodmere, and Inwood. Across the line, Laurelton, Rosedale, Springfield Gardens, Cambria Heights, St. Albans, Jamaica, and Far Rockaway.

The same trucks cover central Nassau, Garden City, Mineola, Westbury, Uniondale, East Meadow, Levittown, Hicksville, Merrick, Wantagh, and Massapequa, the north shore from Great Neck and Manhasset to Glen Cove and Syosset, and the Suffolk border towns of Amityville, Melville, and Huntington. Every town on the locations page has a tire change page. If yours is not listed, call anyway.