DIY Tire Rotation with one scissor Jack?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

hder

New member
Joined
Jun 23, 2016
Messages
2
Curious if anyone has done tire rotation with a scissor jack and jack stands/stacked 2x4 cuttings? I thought of it, but if you are using a scissor jack on the jack points on the side of car, once you have it up, there is no obvious other point to put the jack stands - it's where the scissor jack is!

I could borrow another scissor jack and forget the jack stands, this way I could raise the left front, right rear, do the swap, then the next set the same way. Is this a good idea? Torquing the chassis diagonally like this?

Anyone gone through this process without buying a floor jack and 4 jack stands?
 
I believe the recommended rotation for LEAF is front-to-back. For this the scissor jack should suffice if you use it at the intended jacking point it will lift the entire side of the car. I have a floor jack, but I use those jacking points and tire rotation is fairly easy.
 
If you don't want to invest in the equipment, then have a shop do it.... It is not worth the headache and the danger.

If you want to rotate your own tires, you need to buy some equipment. Scissor jacks and 2x4s will not do it.

Get 2 cheap hydraulic jacks from harbor freight, they go for $59 a piece. The proper rotation pattern is that the rears go the the front. The old fronts cross to the other side of the car to the rear.
 
If you want to lift just one corner at a time and you have an additional mounted tire that will fit on the studs, use that as a placeholder, putting it in place on the first corner that you lift. It'll hold up that corner of the car while you work your way around to the others.
 
Just did the front to rear rotation on my 2013 SL. Tools used: 1 floor jack, puck for the pinch weld, breaker bar, and torque wrench. I just placed the floor jack with the puck at the seam between the front and rear doors, jacked up the entire side of vehicle, swapped the wheels around. And then moved and repeated on the other side. Do you need jack stands, yes from a safety perspective. But otherwise fast and simple process. Took less time than actually taking it to a shop and then sitting there and waiting.
 
The only time I have used a mechanical scissor jack to jack a leaf is when I bought an early 2000s Nissan sentra jack from the junk yard for $3 and wanted to make sure it worked and that the jacks gap fit the pinch panel.

I think you can get a small Walmart floor jack for around $30 and some $10 jack stands.

It will be faster than driving to a tire shop, waiting for them to pull your car in, doing the job paying them and driving home.

Also last week my wife had a flat and she couldn't get the lug nuts loose. I just happened to be leaving work at that time so I go to change it and the lug nuts were on so tight I could barely break them loose with the big 4 way tire iron I keep in the leaf. If I had tried to use the little BS spare tire kit tire iron there's no way. I would have had to go all the way back home and grab my old 18 volt Dewalt 1/2 drive electric impact gun and bring it all the way back out there.
The tire shop replaced a tpms and put that wheel on with a pneumatic impact wrench that's why they were on so tight. I use a torque wrench and set it to 85ft•lb to put alloy wheels on.
 
I'm having my snow tire wheels put on next week, because I'm just too weak now to do the job. I can barely lift and roll the wheels. I've had trouble over the years with pneumatic-wrench-tightened lugs as well. Ironically, when I was 13-15 I was the Tire Guy on a drag racing pit crew - often the only pit crew on hand. I could do the cross wrench hand spin like a pro.
 
I highly recommend breaking the lug nuts loose then re torquing them with a torque wrench.
And put some antisieze, grease or a drop of oil on the studs if they're dry.
A spare tire, jack and lug wrench don't do any good if the lug nuts are seized on there when you get a flat.

Default car torque specs for alloy wheels should be around 80 to 85 ft•lb and 90 to 100 ft•lb for steel wheels.
 
Oilpan4 said:
I highly recommend breaking the lug nuts loose then re torquing them with a torque wrench. ...

Strongly agree after having learned this lesson the hard way.
 
Oilpan4 said:
I highly recommend breaking the lug nuts loose then re torquing them with a torque wrench.
And put some antisieze, grease or a drop of oil on the studs if they're dry.
A spare tire, jack and lug wrench don't do any good if the lug nuts are seized on there when you get a flat.

Default car torque specs for alloy wheels should be around 80 to 85 ft•lb and 90 to 100 ft•lb for steel wheels.

I disagree that you should use antiseize lube on the studs. That lubricates the threads too much and changes the torque you need to use. If you want to protect from rust and dirt, spray with WD40..
 
If anything some lube reduces the torque you need.
Since we shouldn't be any where near the yield strength of a 12mm stud at 100ft•lb it won't hurt anything.
Putting them on is only half the equation, they're going to have to come off at some point too.
 
Back
Top