First, get the car somewhere better
When a tire lets go at highway speed, the car will pull toward the flat side and you may feel a heavy vibration or hear flapping rubber. Grip the wheel, ease off the gas and avoid hard braking until the car is under control. Signal and move right.
Where you stop matters more than how quickly you stop. A wide right shoulder is better than a narrow one, an exit ramp is better than a shoulder, and a gas station or parking lot is best of all. Driving a short distance on a flat at low speed with hazards on will likely ruin the tire, which is often ruined already, and it can damage the wheel. That trade is usually worth making if it gets you off the interstate. Use judgment: if the car is hard to control, stop sooner.
Avoid the left shoulder if you possibly can. On many stretches of I-270 and I-71, it is narrow and sits right against fast lanes and a concrete barrier, with no room to work and no easy way to get back across traffic.
Should you change it yourself?
Many people can change a tire, and on a quiet road it is a reasonable job. On an interstate, the risk comes from the traffic, not the lug nuts. Not every passing driver slows down or moves over, and a person kneeling beside a car is easy to miss, especially at night or in rain.
- Change it yourself only if the flat is on the side away from traffic and the car is well clear of the white line.
- Do not attempt it if the flat tire faces the travel lanes.
- Skip it if the ground is soft, sloped or uneven, because a jack can tip.
- Skip it at night on an unlit stretch, or in heavy rain, snow or fog.
- Skip it if you are not sure the spare is inflated, or you cannot find the jack and lug wrench.
Waiting safely while help comes
If you decide not to change it, call early, so a truck is on the way while you sort out the rest. Turn on your hazard lights. At night, leave the parking lights on too. If you carry reflective triangles, place them behind the car only if you can do it without walking into traffic.
Then decide where to wait. When there is a guardrail and space behind it, getting everyone out on the side away from traffic and standing behind the rail is generally the safer position. When there is no barrier and nowhere to go, staying in the car with seatbelts on is usually better than standing on the shoulder. Do not stand directly behind or in front of the car.
When you call, say which way you were heading and name the closest exit or mile marker, and say which tire is flat. That helps the driver plan how to position the truck as a buffer. Our flat tire change service is a $75 roadside flat rate, with the $75 highway surcharge applying on interstates; the full list is on our rates page.
Many newer cars have no spare at all
To save weight and space, a lot of recent cars come with a tire inflator and a bottle of sealant instead of a spare. Check under the trunk floor before you need it. A sealant kit can work for a small puncture in the tread, like a nail or screw. It will not fix a cut sidewall, a large gash, or a tire that has come off the rim. If you use sealant, tell the tire shop, because it has to be cleaned out and can affect a repair.
Run-flat tires are another approach. They are built to carry the car for a limited distance after losing air, commonly around 50 miles at speeds up to about 50 mph, though the figures vary by tire and maker. Check your manual and get to a tire shop soon.
If there is no usable spare, or two tires are damaged, the answer is a tow to a tire shop. We can take the car to your own shop or to an independent partner for tire and alignment work.
Living with a temporary spare
The small spare, often called a donut, is meant to get you to a tire shop, not to replace the tire for weeks. Most are rated for about 50 mph, and many carmakers suggest limiting the distance to somewhere in the range of 50 to 70 miles. The exact numbers are printed on the spare's sidewall or a label nearby.
Treat the drive to the tire shop as its own short trip. Leave the interstate if you can, take surface roads at moderate speed, and go straight there rather than finishing the day's errands first. If the original tire was only punctured in the tread, the shop may be able to patch it from the inside; a tire driven flat for any distance usually has internal damage and needs replacing.
- Check the spare's pressure once you are off the interstate; many sit unchecked for years and lose air.
- Expect longer stopping distances and less grip, especially on wet pavement.
- Stability control and ABS may behave differently with one smaller wheel on the car.
- On an all-wheel-drive car, follow the manual closely; a mismatched tire makes the drivetrain work harder.
- Have the original wheel checked for damage, not just the tire.
Making a highway flat less likely
Plenty of flats are pure bad luck: a screw from a construction site, a chunk of truck tire in the lane. Others build for weeks. A tire running low on air flexes more, gets hotter at speed and is far more likely to fail on a long interstate drive, especially on a hot summer day. Central Ohio's freeze-thaw cycles add to the risk every late winter, when potholes open up on the outerbelt and the ramps that feed it.
- Check pressure monthly with a gauge, using the number on the driver's door jamb, not the maximum printed on the tire.
- Treat a tire pressure warning light as a reason to stop at the next station, not a nuisance to ignore.
- Look at the tread. Once it is down to about 2/32 of an inch, the tire is worn out and should be replaced.
- Watch for bulges or cracks in the sidewall, often left by a hard pothole or curb strike.
- Pull the spare out once or twice a year to check its pressure and confirm the jack and wrench are there.
If something else goes wrong on the shoulder
Flat tires sometimes arrive with company. A long wait on a summer afternoon can push an older car into overheating, and our guide to handling an overheating car covers that. If the car will not restart after sitting with the hazards on for a long time, a jump start usually sorts it out. And if the car needs to leave the interstate on a truck, our emergency towing runs 24 hours a day from the yard on the southwest side of Columbus, a few minutes from I-70, I-71 and I-270.