jdhoang

I had one tire blow out on me while driving over the weekend. I already had 2 flats on this car and this is my second set of tires. This one was my fault as I have not been keeping track of tire pressure. Noticed tire was low, and filled it with air. By now, it was probably too late as tire was really worn down. When I took off the tire, you could see a lot of the steel belt showing through.

Anyway, I changed a lot of tires in my day, so I never resorted to the MB manual, and changed two tires on this car before with no problem. However, after removing lug nuts off this tire, I was not able to take off the tire. I read the manual, and it mentioned having to put in a special lug after taking one nut off (VDOT tow guy mentioned this to me as well). My wife and niece was trying to help and ended up yanking the car off the jack!! Fortunately, the tire was still on, so I jacked it up and successfully removed the tire. But the dumb car falls off the jack again w/o any tires on it!!! Of course, I'm sh-tting my pants now (excuse the language). Fortunately, after additional failed attempts to jack up the car, a VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) tow truck pulls up behind me, and gives me a hand. I thank my lucky stars as I probably would have to wait forever if I called up AAA.

Does anyone know whether car would be badly damaged from falling off jack? I bought new tires, and car seem to drive ok, but I'm going to take car to dealer next week. Also, does anyone know where this special lug nut is?

DWP

My manual says to remove the topmost bolt after jacking the car, replace the topmost bolt with the "alignment bolt supplied in the tool kit", and then remove the rest of the bolts. Reverse the process to mount the spare. Does your manual say something different?

If you couldn't easily remove the wheel, it was probably stuck because of corrosion or road gunk. I'm not going to speculate if something was damaged by the car falling off the jack, since your dealer is going to inspect for damage next week. Personally, I wouldn't wait that long for an inspection.

lkchris

The alignment bolt is for reinstalling the wheel--not needed to remove and serves no function when removing.

Any car with alloy wheels should have a coat of antiseize on the wheel's hub to prevent dissimilar metals corrosion between the wheel center and the hub. Reapply at every 6500-mile tire rotation.

You need to review jacking procedures in owner's manual as it shouldn't be so easy to collapse the jack.

You can always kick the bottom of the tire a bit to loosen a stuck wheel.

Or you can loosen but not remove the studs, lower the car back down to ground and rock it a bit to loosen the stuck wheel.

klenbore

Mine also stuck the first time I rotated tires (common problem). Clean the rust from the center of the wheel/rotar and just put a smear of grease on the circumference. I haven’t had a problem since.

Hope the car didn't get buggered up when it fell off the jack. Good luck.

DWP

True, if you don't mind holding the wheel and tire in place with your hands while you remove the final bolt with your third hand.

Aussie-E-John

As a safety precaution i have always put the spare wheel or the wheel i have just taken off, under the car just in case something like this happens.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Benz-E-r

Funny, I just had a flat tire when I came out of work today. $#@*! tire was stuck to the rim, dealer changed the tires last and apparently did not use any antisieze. Loosening the bolts and then setting the car down mostly on the tire and it came loose.

This is the 3rd time I have used the jack (well, 3rd and 4th since I put a plug in to hold me for a few days and put the tire back on, if the plug does not hold it will be the 5th in the morning) and it always makes me nervous. When up all the way there is precious little surface area and on an even surface a good bump would knock the car of the jack, or at least so it seems. Nice and compact design but dangerous if you needed to change a tire on the side of the road, if I had parked one row up I would have needed to drive the car to a less frost heaved surface .

Anyone know where to get a jack pad that fits the recess the jack head fits into?

55fanatic

whoah you have a third hand? Where can I get one of them... I only have a third leg...

Fastbuck

I thought that's what knees were for.....

Fastbuck

It may be worth a try using the search function on this forum. There was a post ages ago which showed pictures with a couple of different options.

Benz-E-r

Enlighten me. One person fabricated a jackpad/saddle (not interested in doing that right now). One was looking for the pad that is attached to the rocker panel that the jack would fit into. One had a link to a part designed for a BMW that MIGHT work but no one confirmed. Since it is designed to fit around the outside of the body pad while the Merc jack fits inside the pad I don't want to be the first to try.

I must have missed something else....