Swapped Winters on the Porsche

"Poor_Sh" (ar4x) 10/25/2018 at 20:03 • Filed to: porsche, winter tires, winter is coming

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Aren’t you proud OPPO? I worked on my car today! Yes, a 12 year old could do it, but... shut up. Anyway...

Summers

I’ve been researching for a while, watching how-to videos, and generally learning about my car and techniques and such. Did you know (some?) Porsches come with a 12V Air Compressor stored in a neat location under the hood out of view? I do now.

So, after work I took stuff down 3 flights out to my car. My chocks, “tool box”, torque wrench, breaker bar, jack, hockey puck, non-marring 19mm socket, wheel hangers, and gloves. I had every step in-mind, and was making sure I’d remember the small stuff like, “Loosen the lug bolts while the tire is still on the ground.” and “Tighten the lug bolts in a star pattern.”.... I remembered them almost always :)

I was wearing clothes I know I could damage or whatever, but didn’t expect the first thing I’d do was to catch my puffy jacket under my jack wheel and rip a hole in it. I was bleeding feathers the rest of the time.

Casualties of war.

So I got the jack in place with a hockey puck on top. Lifted the car, and took out my first two bolts while replacing them with the wheel hangers.

Summers with wheel hangers in.

These things are pretty sweet, though I’ve never done this without them so I guess I don’t know the struggle. I know it would be tough though! Getting the front wheels on was a challenge even with the hangers.

Things went really smoothly for the rear wheels. Then, disaster struck! Ok not really, but the fronts were really hard to get off. I had to kick them a bunch, which scared me with it on the jack. I used my palms to hit them, knees to jostle them, and even imported a friend to hang out and assist a bit. Here’s what they look like in comparison.

They actually don’t look too different or bad for winters. In fact, since the car is used the summer wheels are no where near as clean/unscratched as the winters. The one thing I noticed though is the winter wheels look distorted in images. Weird.

Well, it took 2 hours (but that includes getting everything downstairs and upstairs again) and I ended around sunset. But I’m proud of myself! Also, they feel like driving on pillows! I’m somewhat nervous to feel them at 60mph and above since they came mounted and balanced from the interwebs. I’ll worry about that when I get to it though. Thanks for reading.

The Dummy Gummy > Poor_Sh 10/25/2018 at 20:14

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Dang, 2 hours to change four tires. Did you have a meal in between?

All jokes aside, beautiful car!

shop-teacher > Poor_Sh 10/25/2018 at 20:16

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Good work! It’s great to accomplish what sounds like your first bit of wrenching :)

Please please please get a jack stand for when you swap them back!  You never know when a jack will fall or collapse.  I’ve seen it happen to an enormous steel floor jack, but luckily there was a jackstand under there, and nobody got hurt.

Poor_Sh > The Dummy Gummy 10/25/2018 at 20:19

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I wish! Felt light headed near the end carrying the summers back up. Definitely dehydrated, and hadn’t eaten since lunch. I’ll get a feed bag for next time, and a camelback lol

Poor_Sh > shop-teacher 10/25/2018 at 20:22

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I had this debate with myself. Definitely will have them by the next swap due to getting ready to do my oil change. I figured I’d be ok just this once. I know, that’s when accidents happen, but I never went under the car so I think the car would’ve been the only thing damaged. And my pride.

The Dummy Gummy > Poor_Sh 10/25/2018 at 20:32

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LOL, whatever gets you through it! 

CompactLuxuryFan > Poor_Sh 10/25/2018 at 20:36

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Keep an eye out for jack stand sales. I got some great ones from O’Reilly for like 15 bucks once upon a time. Used them to rotate the tires on my A4. Then they were stolen during a “garage clean” at my old building. I was glad I’d gotten them cheap!

shop-teacher > Poor_Sh 10/25/2018 at 20:40

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We’ve all done stupid things :)

Glad to hear you’re going to get them though.  Always keep your guard up!

OPPOsaurus WRX > Poor_Sh 10/25/2018 at 22:03

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A 12 y/o can do it but most 30 y/o people can't so good job.  Double check them tomorrow to make sure all you now are tight

AddictedToM3s - Drives a GC > Poor_Sh 10/26/2018 at 00:29

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Next time try getting a battery powered impact wrench. I have an electric impact from Harbor Freight and it works great for this. With a coupon it came out to $ 30. You can very quickly get the wheels off. Make sure you torque them back by hand though.

Poor_Sh > AddictedToM3s - Drives a GC 10/26/2018 at 12:33

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Yeah I looked into that, didn't see any way to get a $30 setup though. I'll look into it when people ask what I want for Christmas.