So instead of placing the jack on either end of the car next to the wheels, I decided to put it smack down in the middle of those 2 support areas to switch out 2 tires on 1 side real quick. Now my question is if this is bad practice? Will it ruin my car if I do it this way? I wasn't aware that it may be bad until someone told me...

 

You may want to check carefully to see if there is a jack point along there. I'm guessing not as they usually put those directly behind the front wheels and directly in front of the rear wheels. The FIT is light but there is the possibility of denting the frame rail assuming it runs along the underside there. Also, a possibility the car may slip off the jack depending on how it's resting under there.

That being said....what I usually do is use a hydraulic floor jack and lift my cars with that as it's easier to move the jack around. I can -- and have -- lifted the whole side up like you describe to change the tires on each side. It helps to have a jack that lifts 12 inches or higher. I usually experiment with each jack point to see which one lifts the easiest.

Yeah, I know it's not the safest thing to do and I don't endorse it for others but I do work diligently and very quickly and can usually change out a set of tires in 5 minutes or less. If I have a helper, it's even faster so I minimize the amount of time the car is up in the air. And I'm using the car's jack point so, in theory, it might be safer.

Anyway, my 2 cents for whatever that's worth.

 

In my opinion you should not do that again or you will risk damaging your car or possibly endangering yourself or others. Please see the owners manual for the proper jack points.

 

There are jack points in the front middle and the rear middle under the car—I think the owner's manual gives their locations, or there are threads here with pictures of them, at least for the 2nd generation.

For tire rotations, once all the lug nuts are slightly loosened, I jack the car from the front middle spot, put jack stands at the two side front jack points, and rest the car on them, then move the jack to the rear center jack point and have all four wheels off the ground. (This is with a hydraulic floor jack, not the scissor jack that comes with the car.) Obviously one should not crawl under the car when it's supported by a jack alone, but there's no need to be underneath when changing tires.

The car isn't designed to be jacked from random points on the body; you may well put dents in the panels or worse. Also, I suspect the scissor jack may not be rated to support much more than one wheel's weight. It probably would be okay jacking up both back wheels of an empty Fit since the weight balance is decidedly towards the front.

 

Okay yeah you guys just said some reasonable things. However I checked just now and there is absolutely no damage, no dents, no bends to the car frame itself except like a very light bend and paint chip on the part of the frame that was resting on the jack... It was sorta expected but no big deal.
I guess the car is super light and the center pillar is pretty strong.

 

Excellent info. Come and do mine Fall and Spring please.

 

I do pretty much the same thing… works well (and quick) when switching from summer to snow tires or vice versa. Invest in a torque wrench to evenly retighten your lug nuts (I forget if it's 80 or 90 ft-lb) so you don't warp your rotors.

I can't emphasize enough that you need to have good quality jack stands (never use bricks or concrete blocks!) supporting the car any time you are underneath (even partially). I go ahead and throw 'em under while swapping tires even though I won't be under the car.

Also keep in mind if you're on an incline, the car may want to shift or roll as you lift weight off one side – you might need to block the wheels on the opposite side first.

Let's be safe out there. (c:

es

 

i usually have 2 sets of wheels with tires (summer and winter) so i do the rotation when i swap out the wheels every fall and spring. I label the wheel which corner it came from using masking tape and either do a diagonal rotation or just straight forward/aft depending on how the tires are wearing.

i only do one corner at a time using a hydraulic jack, but it goes very quickly. if i need to lift one side, i use two hydaulic jacks at the lift points.
dont forget your wheel chocks.

 

Also remember to set the e-brake. Where are the jack points in the middle front and middle back? I use a hydraulic floor jack on the jack points at each corner, then slide in a jack stand, but it would be much easier to just jack up both sides at the same time from the middle and slide in two jack stands (one on each side). I wasn't aware those jack points existed. I didn't see anything in the manual.

 

I *think* this is what's being referred to:





I use the pictured front jack point, as it lifts both wheels off the ground.

es

 

In looking at my manual, I guess it doesn't say where they are, oddly enough.

On the GE8, the front one is in the middle of the frame cross-rail aft of the engine and between the control arms, about in line with the rear mounts of the control arms. The floor jack needs to be a pretty low-profile one to get at this one easily; the nose hangs down low a good ways in front of it. Alternately, one could drive on ramps to get additional clearance, provided one has gentle enough ramps to clear the overhang.

The back one is a reinforced spot underneath the spare tire well.

I would expect the new Fits to be very similar, but don't know for certain.

The mounts shown by stembridge are for the scissor jack when changing a tire and are excellent places to place jack stands if you use the middle jacking spots with a floor jack.

 

If you just need an inch or so to get a jack under there, it's easy enough to drive the front wheels up on a 1x4 or 2x4 to give you a little more clearance.

 

It is tinner on most cars and you are lifting half the weight under one point

 

Hey man I have changed two tires with one jack several times.

What you do is to jack up the car using the FRONT jack point and pump your jack up to the max. You will be able to change both tires.

 

I assume you mean the FRONT jack point on the side of the car behind the front tire (as opposed to the center front of the car). So you're saying if you jack that up high enough it will raise both the front and rear tire on the same side, interesting. I haven't tried that yet. That would be very helpful if you're changing to 4 snow tires or rotating "directional" tires, but for rotating non-directional tires it wouldn't be as helpful, although it would still reduce the number of times you have to move the floor jack from 4 to 3. I'm going to give it a try next tire rotation.

 

that is correct. front side jack point. but yea, im using directional tires so that would be just twice for me.

edit： and im using a hydraulic jack, not the scissor jack that comes with the spare wheel

 

Understood, same here.

 

wow long thread.....i use 2 jacks and jack up one side at at time...don't like to torque the chassis

 

[ Cackles maniacally and proceeds to help bring zombie thread to life, exclaiming as Frankenstein: "It is alive". ]

id like to see a photo of the aforementioned front middle and rear middle jack points, if they exist...

 

Yes, they exist.