How to Jack Up a Car

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Richard Goms. We're in Murray, Utah. We're talking about basic car care. I'd like to show you now, how to jack up your car, and change a tire. First of all, you should check your owner's manual, to see where your jack should be placed under the car, depending on which wheel, needs to be jacked up. Let's say this is your left front tire, as the driver, and let's say it's flat. You would put the jack somewhere under here, and the manual will tell you exactly where to place the jack. Then, you put the jack handle on, rotate that jack handle, in a clockwise position, so that it will raise the car off the ground. Now, we need to jack it up high enough, so that the tire is actually off the ground. If you have a completely flat tire, the car may be low enough to the ground, that it might be difficult to fit the jack underneath it, or you may have to jack it up for quite a while, to get it up high enough, so that the new tire, or the repaired tire, could go back on again. Now, before you jack up the car, you should make sure that it's not going to roll, and if you're jacking up one of the front tires, you should put the emergency brakes on, so that the rear tires don't roll. An even better suggestion, would be to have wheel chalks, those orange things back there, under the back tires, if you're jacking up the front, or under the front tires, if you're jacking up the rear. Now, the way to take it down, is to crank it back the other direction, in a counterclockwise manner."