How to Change a Tire on a Subaru Forester (Check This Before You Jack It Up)

Here's how I swapped a wheel on our 2011 Subaru Forester — where the jack and spare live, how the anti-theft lug nut works, where the jack actually goes, and the torque sequence at the end. The most useful part of this whole thing happened in the first two minutes, before the car ever came off the ground, and it's the step almost nobody does.

Quick Facts

• Project: Removing and replacing a wheel on a Subaru Forester using the factory jack and spare
• Difficulty: Moderate — none of it is complicated, but a car on a jack is unforgiving of shortcuts
• Time: About 30–45 minutes working carefully; faster once you've done it
• Main challenge: Breaking loose the anti-theft lug nut, and getting the jack on the correct lift point
• Best for: Someone who wants to know their car before they're stuck on a shoulder at night
• Call a professional when: You're on a slope, on soft ground, on a highway shoulder, or anything about it feels wrong — a tow truck is cheaper than the alternative

The Situation

This wasn't an emergency. I did it in my own garage, on dry flat pavement, with time to look things over — which is exactly the point.

The worst possible moment to learn where your jack is, which lug wrench fits, and whether your anti-theft key actually works is while you're standing on the side of a road in the dark with traffic going by. So I ran the whole thing as a dry run, and I found a problem I'd much rather find at home.

⚠️ Before You Start — Read This Part

I'm not a mechanic. Everything below is what I did on my own vehicle, not instruction for yours.

This one has real consequences if it goes wrong, so a few things I'm not going to soften:

• Flat, hard, level ground only. I was on pavement. A jack on gravel, grass, dirt, or any slope can sink or shift, and a car coming off a jack is a catastrophic event, not an inconvenience.
• I never got under the car, and I wouldn't. A scissor jack holds a car up. It is not something to trust your body to. If a job requires getting underneath, that's jack stands and a different skill set than this.
• If you're on a highway shoulder, strongly consider just calling for a tow. Passing traffic is the actual danger in most roadside tire changes, not the tire.
• As I said in the video: if you're not comfortable doing any of this, don't. Call a tow truck or a mechanic. There's no prize for doing it yourself.

Your Forester's owner's manual is the authority on jack points and torque specs — not me, and not the internet.

What I Used

• Factory spare kit — donut spare, scissor jack, and lug wrench, all stored under the trunk floor
• Anti-theft lug nut adapter — the keyed socket that comes with the car
• Torque wrench — a cheap one, which is still infinitely better than none
• Socket and adapter — these lugs are 3/4 inch or 19mm; those are effectively the same size, so either works
• Impact wrench - tightened lugnuts down
• A scrap piece of wood — placed at the adjacent rear wheel
• Optional: a drill with a bit that fit the jack (more on that below)
• Suggested: a rag or sponge to pad your hand on the lug wrench

What I Did

1. Checked the existing torque before touching anything. I put the torque wrench on and applied pressure to see where the lugs were sitting. They didn't move at 60. They didn't move at 80. So they were at least 80 ft-lb, which is roughly where I wanted them. Looking it up online gave me a spread of opinions, but around 80 was the consensus for this model. Check your owner's manual for your car's actual spec — that's the number that matters, not mine.

2. Tested whether the anti-theft lug would actually come off — before jacking. This is the single best thing in the video, and it's thirty seconds of work. I tried to break the anti-theft lug loose with the tools I had in hand, and I couldn't. I did not have the right piece. I'm very glad I found that out standing in my driveway instead of on a shoulder at 10pm. The key lives in the spare kit under the trunk floor, and once I had it, it worked. If you do nothing else from this post, go check that your key is in your car and that it turns.

3. Got the spare kit out from under the trunk floor. Lift the panel and it's all there — donut, scissor jack, lug wrench, and the adapter. Worth knowing where that is before you need it.

4. Broke the anti-theft nut loose with some persuasion. It was on tight. I put the lug wrench on the adapter, angled it, and protected my hand while I leaned on it. It took real effort. This is where that rag-or-sponge tip earns its keep — padding the end of the handle makes a stuck lug a lot less painful.

5. Chocked the opposite wheel with wood. I put a scrap block at the adjacent rear wheel so the car couldn't roll. Takes ten seconds.

6. Loosened all five lug nuts while the wheel was still on the ground. Not off — just loosened. With the tire's weight planted, the wheel can't spin while you break the nuts free. Try this with the wheel in the air and it just rotates. The last one was stubborn. Then I jacked.

7. Found the pinch weld. The scissor jack goes on the pinch weld along the underside of the body, and on this car there's a molded indicator showing you where. That's the reinforced spot engineered to carry the car's weight. Put a jack somewhere else on a unibody car and you bend sheet metal or worse. I'm no mechanic, but the arrow is there for a reason and I used it.

8. Raised the car — and tried a shortcut that half worked. The jack raises by twisting a threaded rod, and there's no proper crank tool in the kit; you get an Allen wrench and a flathead screwdriver, neither of which is pleasant. I found a bit that fit the jack's end and ran it with a drill. It did lift the car, and then my battery died partway through. So I'll call that a partial success — if you don't have a drill, or your battery quits like mine did, the provided tool or a screwdriver gets it done, just slower. Raise it only high enough to clear the wheel, and remember this is an emergency jack: I wasn't leaving the car up there any longer than necessary.

9. Pulled the wheel, mounted the spare. Lug nuts spin off by hand at that point. The spare goes on and the nuts thread back on — by hand first. Don't start them with a tool; cross-threading a stud is an expensive mistake.

10. Hand-tightened in a five-point star pattern. One, two, three, four, five — skipping across the wheel rather than going around the circle. Star pattern pulls the wheel onto the hub evenly. Going around in order can seat it crooked. I wiggled it back and forth to confirm it was sitting flat before snugging everything down.

11. Lowered the car, then torqued. Order matters here. Final torque goes on with the wheel back on the ground, not while it's hanging in the air. Then I brought each lug to 80 in the same star pattern — on a cheap beam-style wrench, you're watching the needle and feeling the moment it stops turning.

12. Put the kit away and set a reminder. Everything back under the trunk floor. I plan to drive about 50 miles and then re-check the torque — lug nuts can settle after a wheel change, and that re-check is the step most people skip.