I always wear a weight lifting belt when I do the tires. I have to haul the tires from the shed. With 17-18 inch tire on the vehicles now, they are really hefty. I also always do alloys for my winters. It costs more, looks nicer, less rust, but holy hell the main reason is the weight difference between the steelies and alloys is quite noticeable when pulling them out of storage.
I find I often think I'll take 30 minutes, but it takes closer to 45-55 mins due to prep and small things. Some small things seem trivial but do add around 1-2 minutes per tire which slowly adds up to that 15 minute time overage. I pulled the trigger on a wireless torque wrench. That should save about 5 minutes of detangling extension cords, plugging in, moving the cord around and the occasional snags when transitioning from tire to tire.
Do other people not clean the threads before putting the tire back on? I usually wipe off any basic dust and dirt using my glove and occasionally I'll put a drop of some type of lube before tightening the nut, especially if I see a hint of a film of rust.
I gotta buy that oil pen to replace the permanent marker to label the tires. I think that'll also be pretty sweet in terms of replacing the chalk/permanent market method I was using before.
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