Been wondering whether I should be trying to change my tires myself or not.
My limited experience has been that it seems quite difficult in actuality to change a largish tire. As in, it's not physically easy, there are large awkward forces involved, and the risk of damaging expensive alloy rims.
I do enjoy a challenge, but I also want to be realistic. I suspect YT makes it look much easier than reality.
Seems like good tools to make this reasonably feasible would be a couple of hundred bucks at least. And from what I can tell, it's still an ordeal even with good tools. After all, seems like all the pros in the US use a fancy rugged machine to do that.
For context, I can probably have a tire changed in a back alley for $15 or $20. I can afford that, but don't like the idea of somebody else doing the work for me. And I can see that it would feel good to manage to do it myself.
I do foresee having to change at least 7 or 8 in the next year or two, including 5 larger truck tires, so I may already be half way through the cost of a set of tools if I farmed it out. The truck tires would be 33" on a 16" rim. The trailer tires would be more like 27" on a 15" rim.
I do have a cheap manual HF tire changing "stand" but it seems wildly outclassed by truck size tires, and likely even trailer tires. So probably worthless.
So my question is: is it worth investing in the tools and the learning if I only were typically to change, say, a couple of tires a year on average, but maybe several in the beginning? Some may be smaller trailer tires, though, surely those are easier.
Does it become straightforward with good tools or is still an iffy proposition best to stay away from for the average DIYer? Is the learning curve steep?
Advice? Worth trying? Or just pay the $20 and forget it all? Clearly the easiest way to go.
TIA
My limited experience has been that it seems quite difficult in actuality to change a largish tire. As in, it's not physically easy, there are large awkward forces involved, and the risk of damaging expensive alloy rims.
I do enjoy a challenge, but I also want to be realistic. I suspect YT makes it look much easier than reality.
Seems like good tools to make this reasonably feasible would be a couple of hundred bucks at least. And from what I can tell, it's still an ordeal even with good tools. After all, seems like all the pros in the US use a fancy rugged machine to do that.
For context, I can probably have a tire changed in a back alley for $15 or $20. I can afford that, but don't like the idea of somebody else doing the work for me. And I can see that it would feel good to manage to do it myself.
I do foresee having to change at least 7 or 8 in the next year or two, including 5 larger truck tires, so I may already be half way through the cost of a set of tools if I farmed it out. The truck tires would be 33" on a 16" rim. The trailer tires would be more like 27" on a 15" rim.
I do have a cheap manual HF tire changing "stand" but it seems wildly outclassed by truck size tires, and likely even trailer tires. So probably worthless.
So my question is: is it worth investing in the tools and the learning if I only were typically to change, say, a couple of tires a year on average, but maybe several in the beginning? Some may be smaller trailer tires, though, surely those are easier.
Does it become straightforward with good tools or is still an iffy proposition best to stay away from for the average DIYer? Is the learning curve steep?
Advice? Worth trying? Or just pay the $20 and forget it all? Clearly the easiest way to go.
TIA