Winter wheel swaps - do you or your dealer do it?

[Arianne]

Hello folks,

First frost here in the Central Borders this morning. So won't be long before we'll be thinking about swapping the alloys over from summer to winters. We only had one set of alloys on the previous XC90 and so the car always went back to the dealer for the tyres to be swapped across on the rims - £12 per corner although sometimes Clelands sometimes felt generous and did it for free, which was nice

But now we have two sets of alloys for the XC60 with the seasonal tyres mounted on each. So I am wondering whether to do the wheel swap out myself.



What do you guys do?

If I do it myself:

1. I think I'll need to get a jack / trolley jack as my car came with no spare wheel and the jacks in the other two cars won't be built to take the weight of the heavier XC60 (almost 2t) and may not extend to the full SUV height either;
2. I'll need to get a wrench for the same reason;
3. do you have to set the wheel nut torque to a certain level or is 'tight + 1/4 turn' good enough;
4. what about tracking?

The thing is, while it would be nice to save approx. £100 p.a. by doing the wheel swap myself, I don't want to squander £'000 by chewing up my tyres because I have made a 'dog's breakfast' of fitting the wheels. The tyres on this thing add up to serious money and so replacing them early is not a wise move.

Thoughts?

Arianne

[Spitfire4]

As a courtesy our dealer will change and store the tyres FOC as long as we purchase the tyres through them, I know I can find them cheaper but it's swings and roundabouts as I would have to pay to have them changed, so we're going with that.

[wimorrison]

I do it myself this time of year then in the spring, takes about 20-30mins and is really easy.

I would get yourself one of these Electric Jack which takes all the hard effort (would like one myself if you feel like buying me one) and then to make getting the wheels off easier buy a wheelbrace .

Both of these will make it a doddle and will save you having to carry dirty wheels and tyres in the car to the fitter

Edit - meant to also say that you are not lifting the entire weight of the car, 50% at most assuming you lift both wheels on one side, reality is that it will be around 30% of the car weight.

[GMcL]

I do it myself as it lets me have a poke around underneath and see if anything needs attending to while I'm in there, brake lines, suspension rubbers, drop links and the like can all be easily inspected, cleaned up, sprayed ready for the winter.

2 tonne trolley jack and axle stands are cheap enough.

Wheel brace for removing nuts and a torque wrench (I've got one of these) others are available.

The nuts Volvo spec at 140Nm, the old McGuard locking wheel nuts made of swiss cheese didn't like this so I used to do 110Nm, the newer locking nuts with the locking mechanism at the base of the nut instead of in the face appear to be OK at 140.

[wimorrison]

Do NOT get the cheap 2 tonne jacks and stands from Halfords, Aldi, lidl, etc as they do not have enough lift to raise an XC60

You need a high lift trolley Jack

[MikeIOW]

I have mostly done ours, although I have used Costco twice: they never seem to have any queue and only charge about £8.40 a corner!!

Have a relatively cheap 2ton trolley jack, plus an extending arm wrench, and yes, I use a torque wrench to get the nuts right

Takes about an hour for all 4, I'd say.

But I'm still wondering what to do for winter tyres, so I may see if my selling dealer is more negotiable on price, and I bet they would swap and store.....if the price is right.....

And no, I haven't tried my jack with the XC yet, so I may be under equipped in the lifting department.....

[Harvey1512]

I use a nice little garage opposite where I work. A really old fashioned two man set up who are really helpful. At least I know if they do it then it will be done correctly. It depends how practical you are but if in doubt get a proper man.

[GMcL]

Originally Posted by wimorrison

Do NOT get the cheap 2 tonne jacks and stands from Halfords, Aldi, lidl, etc as they do not have enough lift to raise an XC60

You need a high lift trolley Jack

Have you not got any old railway sleepers lying around?

Arianne could liberate the odd one from the new Borders line.

[MikeIOW]

Originally Posted by wimorrison

I do it myself this time of year then in the spring, takes about 20-30mins and is really easy.

forgot to ask...per wheel, or all 4 ?!

I reckon on about 10-15 per wheel.....plus a bit of faffing about getting the wrench/jack etc.....then perhaps another 10 minutes per wheel cleaning them before popping away....oh, how the time flies :-)

[wimorrison]

Originally Posted by GMcL

Have you not got any old railway sleepers lying around?

Arianne could liberate the odd one from the new Borders line.

like these ones?

Seriously, it is a very dangerous and bad practice to place a jack on anything but level ground.