Swapping to Winter Tire Question
 

What are the proper steps to switching tires?
Is it simply a matter of taken them off and putting the new ones on??

I have a set of winter tires and rims mounted and balanced ready-to-go..

(Excuse my lack of knowledge..I've never done it before)

What is wheel alignment? Do I have to worry about it?

You'll need to check the tire rotation arrows and install so this is correct. If the new wheels have the pressure sensors you will have to reprogram the computer for the new TPMs.
Shouldn't have to worry about alignment unless to old tires are not wearing evenly.

I should have mentioned the instructions for reprogramming are in the manual and are very simple to follow.

Sensors.....
 

No need to worry about the pressure sensors, the Canadian cars don't have that system.

Like Midlife said, just make sure the rotation direction is right, and have fun!

S

Clean and mark the old ones so next spring you don't have to guess where they were mounted.

Heh ... that's too funny Admiral ... I was actually just going to swap my rims this weekend. Oh the other thing is that you might want to use a torque wrench at the end. I know some people say just hand tighten but I'd rather torque it down to Mazda specifications. I believe the current value is 108lb (old value was around 85).

Oh don't forget when jacking up the car, to put a brick or rock behind the wheel diagonal to it. Guess the other common sense thing is to have the e-brake up.

Thanks guys, that helps.
If I can figure out how to use a torque wrench, I may try that as well BlueFrenzy.

I'll second the comment on using a torque wrench. Some people say that the rotors can warp if the lugs are not torqued evenly. This may or may not be true, but what is definitely true is that if the lugs are not sufficiently torqued, the wheel could fall off the car! Given that you say you don't have much knowledge on car repair, I would definitely say it is a bad idea for you to trust your "feel" for whether or not the torque is sufficient. Maybe you have a friend who can help you? Maybe one of the other Calgary members could be convinced to help you out too.

As for the direction arrow, if there is no arrow on the tire don't be concerned. Many high performance tires are directional (ie, they have an arrow for the proper rotation direction), but some are not, especially winter high performance tires. My Hankook Icebears are not directional, and neither were the 195/60R15 Pirelli 210 snowsports I had on my previous car. However, some winter tires are directional. I believe the Dunlop M3 and Michelin Pilot alpin are directional.

Marc

Torque wrench is a must have item in my mind along with an appropriate deep impact socket (must be deep enough to not damage the cap on the lug nuts and you want to avoid an extension as that throws off torque settings a bit). It is also handy to have an electric impact wrench to loosen stuff, saves on using pipes as leavers and a two stage jacking effort. Have a look at Princess Auto, they put both the impact wrenches (~$60) and torque wrenches (~$30-$50) on sale now and then, quality is quite acceptable. A breaker bar is also a useful thing to have, I never use my torque wrenches to loosen anything as that risks damaging them.

Yes the 108 ft/lbs stated above is correct, I had to retorque mine to that to keep the fronts from clicking really loudly in slow tight turns as per the TSB, figured it would take less time to fix the problem than to drop the car off at the dealer. I always put a small amount of anti-seize or wheel bearing grease on the lug bolts, contact points between the rotor hat and wheel and on the wheel hub. This is particularly important with steel wheels as they can rust on there so badly that you will eventually have to literally beat the wheel off of there. Always torque things evenly in a crisscross pattern, once torqued drive the car for several blocks or more and then check the torque again. This is particularly important with steel wheels, especially new ones, they almost always require additional torquing. One risk factor with steels is that they may deform with the recommended 108 ft/lbs, the cheap after market things are really flimsy and I don't think I would go above about 85-90 ft/lbs. The note above about warping rotors is also true if the lug nuts are seriously over tightened and if some monkey goes crazy with an impact wrench with no torque limiter, chances are that you won't be able to change a flat on the road someplace, not that there is much of an option there with the 8 but it is for my other cars . . . You must also mark the old tires on the inside face as to where they were mounted or you won't know where to put them back on, e.g. LF, LR, RF, RR. In spring mount them in rotated order, front to back on the same side of the car. I didn't notice if the factory wheels had hub centring rings, those can easily pop off and get lost, been there and done that, might only be an after market wheel issue . . .

Hey Admiral

Hope the winter rim swap went alright ... finished mine today and boy does it feel "squishy" to be on winters again. If you're looking for a torque wrench, they have some pretty high quality ones at Auto Value for about 40-50 bones. Much cheaper than the 90-200 dollar ones (meant for professionals that use it all day) that I've seen elsewhere. Or let me know if you want me to swing by.

The other thing that I've always done (as Scoop mentioned), is to re-torque after about 100km to be on the safe side. I think Kal Tire does it for free (or is after you have them swap for you .. can't remember).

On another note, those of you that had it swaps done by NorthHill Mazda will be happy to know that they go by the book. I was to lazy to swap them in spring so I had them do it the same time as the maintenance. When I checked the torque prior to taking my summers off, it was square on 108lbs.

BlueFrenzy, I just switched to my winter set up (Pilot Alpines) and I noticed that they were really noisy. Almost like a squishy sound although the tires were 35 lbs pressure and the arrows were pointing in the proper direction. When turning in a 360 degrees circle I can hear them squeeling a bit. I don't remember that happening last year when I first put them on. The only thing I can think of is that I rotated them by moving fronts to rears on the same sides and now they need to wear out a bit to balance the tread. Did you or anyone else notice the same thing?

I have no idea if what I'm about to say (type) makes any sense...but today was very warm out (if it's today that you noticed the sound). Perhaps that had something to do with the noise ? I haven't switched yet. I'm switching at the end of this coming week I think.

Herbert, thanks for the feedback. I thought of the same thing. However, I just took it out for a 1/2 hour boot and it sounds a lot better and smoother. I'll give it a week for the sound to completely dissapear and I'll update this thread accordingly.

By the way, they are expecting "snow showers" on Wednesday. That's why I changed them to day, while I had the time. I don't think there will be much snow this week if any, but I just didn't want o get caught with the summers on.

I put one of mine on today, and then had to put my summer back on because the dealer tightened my lock nut SO much, that my impact wrench and my tire iron couldnt get it to budge :-/

when I put the summer rim back on, I used the torque wrench to tighten to 108 lb, but i noticed that the back of the rim is about 4 mm off from the rotor.. just enough space to fit a key in between.

Why is this? I tried to get the rim to go flush but no avail.

Its torqued to the proper spec, double and triple checked.... what did I do wrong???

:SHOCKED: ^^ WTF...a gap between the hub and the wheel??? Not good....better get that checked out. Can't think of an easy explanation...maybe something stuck on the back of the wheel mounting surface??

Ditto. That's wierd. Matbe they put spacers on the hub? They do that to give it a little more width. However, that is not a stock item. Maybe they put them on when you changed rims before (last winter) to compensate for the offset that is on the regular RX8 rims. And then when they/you went to put your RX8 rims back on, you/they fogot to take them off.

I've seen hubcentric rings pinched between the hub and wheel...but the runout would be so bad that you would feel like you were driving a Flintstone car with square wheels.

Since they were the stock wheels?? this won't apply..........

Hub centric....
 

Assuming the summers are your stock Mazda rims, perhaps the hub centering ring from the winter alloys got stuck on the hub and is still in place?

Either way take the wheel off, tightening it more won't help, and it must be fixed.

S

My winter rims came with 4 rings, which I didn't use or didn't need to use. Check to see if there is a hard plastic ring (mine are about 4mm wide) in your stock rims. that's what is probably keeping the rim from being snug against the hub.

I bet your winter rims didn't have sufficient offset so they use the rings and put them in your rx8 rims because they thought it should be there, but it shouldn't. Check with the dealer to be 100% sure.

Hubcentric rings keep the rim centered on the hub, not for offset correction ( that's spacers) .....could be the hubcentric ring from the winter tire...:fingersx:

That's not good with that space there! My guess is with Shamblerock's ... probably an offset corrector ring left there.

Hey Shamblerock, the wheels sounding ok now? What torque did you use? Because I know that Mazda recommended the 108 (up from 85 or so) to correct squealing when turning.

I've finished my first ever tire swap.
I did it at my brother-in-laws garage. He's a lot more mechinally inclined than I am...
We didn't have a torque wrench, so it was all tightened by hand.
I may have to pick one up soon and re-check everything......(that's if I can figure out how to use it..lol)

Anyhow, it's been a week now and everything seems to be fine.
I don't hear any squeaking or strange noises. I've yet to do the tight circle test to see if that produces anything.

Admiral ... good to see the car didn't blow up or anything from the tire swap. you can pick up a good torque wrench at Autozone for about 40 dollars (rather than 90 or so at Canadian Tire or Home Depot).

Funny you mention hand tightening ... but I did an experiment to see how my guesstimate hand torquing was. Did all five bolts on one wheel with hand tighten, then went back to see how much torque each had. They were all over the place ... 80 to 110!

Well this is the thing, I didnt even put my winters on, I couldnt take the others off because the lock nuts were too tight.

I put the stock one back on and then whammy, the space.

Its wierd, and shouldnt happen I know, but when I checked it out on the surfaces both were fine and there are no spacer, because I dont THINK I had it before... because its not on any other wheels.

I drove it around, and it feels stock, no jittering, and no wierd feeling..... Maybe they messed it up 8 months ago and I never noticed?

Either way, im getting it checked out. shouldnt happen at all.


The wierd thing is, is that it feels NORMAL... which scares me.

I think ill whip the tire off tomorrow and check for these "rings" dont think ill find em, but worth a look.