Monday my wife came home with a flat. Didn't mention it to me, but I noticed it when I brought in the trash can. "Oh, it gave me a low pressure warning when I was leaving work, but it drove fine so it couldn't have been flat." It was sitting on the rim. I filled it up completely and by morning was back on the rim. Time to put on the Summer tires anyway. So yesterday it was dry and I did it myself rather than trying to ferry the wheels to Discount Tire, who usually does my seasonal swaps. No issues. The Harbor Freight low profile jack worked fine and fit the jack-point pads fine. First time I have worked with lug bolts instead of studs & nuts. A little harder getting in place while getting the first one started. Glad they are only 195 on a 17" wheel and not my 305s on a 20" wheel for the Challenger though! Book said 101 ft-lbs torque. Easily reached with my torque wrench. Seems like fairly low torque and easy to achieve. That sound right, though? Any tricks or special techniques for wheel changes for our MINI that I missed? Wheel didn't seem to be "hub centric" or anything...just prop up with my feet while starting the bolt, work them all in loosely before tightening first to 90 then 101 ft-lb. Easy. Getting the new set out of the shed after moving half the contents out of the way (including my winter set for the Challenger) was the hardest part. I think I'll take the flat down to DT to have then check, but it looks like there is a jagged cut in the sidewall. Don't really need to deal with the tire until late Fall, but probably need 2 new tires as these have about 23k miles on them. This was passenger-front and were ready to move to the rear with more wear than the rears. So two new tires for front before winter. I think I have road hazard certs on them... Rob
The recommendation was to REtorque after driving for several miles. The installer should have torqued them on installation. Apparently, the initial drive settles the wheels.
I'm late to the summer tire swap party because there was a blizzard on April 30th! I use 140Nm (103.2587 ft lbs) and re-torque after 25+ miles.
Yeah, I did 90 ft-lbs on each while still in the air, then when I was done went around and did them all to 101. I drove Sparky about 20 miles round trip yesterday and it was rolling great. I reset the average efficiency meter to get the "summer range" info. It was sitting at 3.5 before the reset and for my short trip it was 4.3. I know I get an average of about 4.0 with the summer tires in warmer months, 3.7-8 with the All Season tires in the warmer months (didn't put the summers back on last year) and down to 3.5-6 with the A/S in the winter. So it seems the A/S cost about 5% efficiency and the cold another 5%. When my wife gets home from work today (about 56 miles r/t), I'll re-torque them to 105 as suggested. Rob
