Hi I've got an Octavia vRS  and I've never used a Trolley Jack or Axle Stands before. I can change a wheel and have fitted mud flaps but I'm no mechanic.

 

I would like some advise on removing the Alloy Wheels occassionally, to rotate as recommended in the book and also to give a thorough clean a couple of time a year.

 

Should I do both rears together i.e. raise back of car then repeat for the front? or Is it ok to take 1 wheel off at a time to clean, do I need axle stands or just use 1 or 2, 2 tonne trolley jacks or Scissor jack at the strengthened points on the sill where its indicated. Do I need one of the grooved rubber pucks if Jack comes with a rubber pad?

 

As you can gather I'm really unsure on what to buy and how best to achieve this without damaging my car.

I've read the earlier models were prone to sill seam damage is this still the case.?

 

Any tips, do's and don'ts very much appreciated.

 

What do you guys (and Gals) do?

 

Thanks

The emergency jack has a groove so the cill doesn’t get squashed, you can change your wheels with this, I have done it on my car, but you need to jack it 5 times as need to take the spare back off (or 6 times if you have directional tyres)   Easiest is slacken the nuts about a turn before lifting especially if using the basic wheel  brace.

 

With a trolley jack you save bit of time, (basically saving all the jack winding time) but really need to use protection on the jacking points as the lift point is flat with small flanking tabs.  You want to avoid crushing the narrow metal strip.

A ice puck with a groove just happens to be about right size, but whatever you have lying around to protect is better than nothing, even a old folded up face flannel works.

 

With multiple jacks or stands then obviously can swap wheels simultaneously without temporarily putting spare on first wheel.  
 

However if you are swapping winter-summer then only need 4 lifts anyway so can do it with a basic jack in about 30 minutes assuming you can change a wheel in about 5 minutes, with a few minutes to set up and pack jack away again.

 

 

Edited 10 April, 20224 yr by SurreyJohn

Thanks for reply.

 

Yes that's a lot of winding with the supplied jack and why I thought the trolley jack would be good. It's just never having used one I wasn't sure if that's the best way to go.

Also really concerned about potential damage by putting in wrong place. Would the Axle stands fit along side or have to go under the car at another point.?

 

If I wanted to clean the wheels and put some sealant on the alloy insides would it be ok to leave the car raised on a jack or do i need to fit the spare or use an axle stand. Car could be 20 mins or so without the wheel.

 

I think I need to look at the emergency jack profile and jacking point to get an idea of the protection required if I buy a trolley jack then.

You could leave it on the scissor jack or trolley jack but better get some wheel chocks to stop it rolling off the jack. It’s ok like that if you aren’t going under the car. 

Thanks. Will definitely get some Wheel chucks.

 

Do you think this Scissor Jack would be an improvement on the Skoda one.

https://heynershop.co.uk/vehicles-service-repairs/877-ultra-lift-l-scissor-jack-2t-402822434702.html

 

 

Edited 10 April, 20224 yr by GrumpyOldGit
spelling

38 minutes ago, GrumpyOldGit said:

Thanks. Will definitely get some Wheel chucks.

 

Do you think this Scissor Jack would be an improvement on the Skoda one.

https://heynershop.co.uk/vehicles-service-repairs/877-ultra-lift-l-scissor-jack-2t-402822434702.html

 

 

Someone may know more than me about that product but I’d rather have a quality trolley jack. 

55 minutes ago, GrumpyOldGit said:

Do you think this Scissor Jack would be an improvement on the Skoda one.

https://heynershop.co.uk/vehicles-service-repairs/877-ultra-lift-l-scissor-jack-2t-402822434702.html

 

 

 

It's an improvement over the supplied "widow maker" but not by much, as said above a good trolley jack is the safest option 

You only need axle stands if you intend to work under the car.

You wouldn’t be able to place them anyway without sticking at least an arm under

 

Wheel chocks are good idea, but wedging a decent size lump of wood or a spare housebrick does similar job (in the past I used to keep a broken wooden fence post cut into about 1 foot lengths and used them)

 

The slackening of the wheel bolts about one turn before you jack the car also reduces risk of you shoving it whilst it is suspended.  
 

If wheels haven’t been off for long while then they can sort of fuse onto the hub, a trick to loosen them is part undo the bolts then wobble car side to side, or even drive it a metre, before you jack it up.   If you change winter-summer about every 6 months unlikely to have any problem of stuck on wheels

 

Having changed to summer-winter using the emergency jack first time (which works fine, but is lots of winding), I subsequently bought a trolley jack from tool station, but as my drive is block paving I put the jack on a solid board as it needs to roll a bit as it raises.  (and if your board is about thickness of a scaffold board, won’t need a high lift trolley jack, unless you have serious off-roader)

 

If you need to put the spare on temporarily to swap wheels around don’t bother to put the 5th bolt in (the locking one), it doesn’t need to be fully tightened up if not going anywhere and taking it back off few minutes later.

 

Finally if you are buying a jack to use at home, buy the trolley jack, only get the scissors jack if you need a jack to keep in the car to use in emergencies

 

 

 

Edited 10 April, 20224 yr by SurreyJohn

+1 for the grooved rubber puck / trolley jack / chock of wood approach. You will need a torque wrench to do the wheel nuts up to the correct torque. Maybe a breaker bar to loosen them if some Kwikfit gorilla has left his rattle gun on 300Nm when fitting the wheels.

 

The supplied jack is for emergencies only. Horrible unstable thing.

Thanks everybody, always good to get some practical advice.

 

I have an extendable socket bar and a suitable torque wrench. I'm sure I can find a few bricks and wood as well.

Good tip about the trolley jack needing to be able to move during the lift.

Will buy a trolley jack as I have a small garage to store it in and a driveway.

 

I think my biggest concerns where damaging the sill and would a trolley jack slowly deflate whilst I had the wheel off. From the replies, so long as the jack is in good working order that shouldn't be an issue so no need for stands and a rubber puck thingy should avoid damage.

By the way, it is normally not a huge problem if the trolley jack drops back down slowly while the wheel is off, just an inconvenience, you will restore things by pumping it back up when it is time to refit the wheel.

 

I've made adaptors/spreaders for using a trolley jack with both our cars, from a suitable hard wood and shape it to suit and lined it with thickish hard rubber on the bearing surfaces and thinner rubber to line the slot for the folded seam, make sure that if you end up doing this that you find out what heights for the bearing surfaces work for your car as not all cars have the flat areas at the same height - ie the inner and outer ones, although some do!  Also the same for the slot width at all 4 points and obviously aim to have the car resting on the flat surfaces with free space all around the folded metalwork.

I made all my adaptors for above the trolley jack cup about 6>9 inches long to spread the load - so far that has worked for 9 years with my S4 which is quite heavy and 7 years with my wife's 2015 VW Polo, I've used the set I made for the 2011 S4 on my daughter's 2019 Leon Cupra which should be the same as your Octavia, or near enough.

 

As I tend to get under all the cars that I seem to need to, I have gone a lot further and instead of what I claimed I had done, I bought a set of 4 Jackpoint jack stands in from USA on a group buy I found on the Porsche UK owners website - directed to there by Google!  So I modified the top sections of the Jackpoint  jack stands by fitting suitable hard wood adaptors to the top surfaces, by doing that I can just use these top sections and 2 trolley jacks if only swopping winter<>summer wheels, or with the jack stand bases/tables if getting both sides up and working under it - it does not sound like you could justify buying all that stuff as you are not planning on doing much work on your car, I was just shocked when I first looked under that car after buying it and thinking that getting it up in the air and safely supporting it looked a bit challenging s that was the first car that I had owned that seemed to be completely covered in plastic panels underneath. I am just outlining what I did to get that S4 up in the air, with the VW Polo which has more ground clearance, I made up a set of 4 suitable spacers to fix to the top of the adaptors I made for the S4, they need to be used with a lot more care due to the overall height being greater - but still very stable once the car is up in the air on both sides.

 

I honestly don't know why no one in the DIYer UK market has not come up with a cheaper simple system for getting modern cars up in the air safely so that you can work safely under it!

 

I also built a set of 4 very wide and long ramps out of large bits of wood, for the times that I don't need to remove the wheels, only using 2 of them when changing engine oil.

Please don’t ever use a brick. They crumble.
 

Always a hefty lump of wood. Or 2.

 

From one who’s been swapping wheels for half a century and has enough tools and jacks to compete with Kwik Fit 😀

Some proper wheel chocks are very cheap and work amazingly well - I once forgot to remove mine and wondered why the car wouldn’t move when I tried to set off!!