We have a Chevrolet Captiva on test at the moment, and it suffered a front left puncture. Because it’s the fancy pants Captiva, it has 19 inch wheels, which weigh at least 470kg each. The last time I had to deal with a puncture was a few years back, so I set myself a challenge: how fast could I change this tyre?

First issue: locating the actual spare wheel and tyre. Now, in the sensible years of motoring, maybe 10 years back, the spare was in the car. Usually under the floorboards in the boot. This positively useful, convenient way of storing the spare tyre has gone out of fashion, and I cannot understand why. The Chev’s spare was mounted underneath the car, being held up in some sort of weird metal hammock arrangement. I can see no reason why.

But how to get to it? A small piece of plastic on the rear bumper looked like it might pop out, and had the words Spare Tyre written across. I popped this open with the key and found a bolt, about the size of the wheel nuts. I now had to use the wheel spanner to release the spare. I wound and wound and wound, and after about two minutes of solid spanner twirling, the spare dropped to the ground with a might klang. Great design feature.

The gap between the tarmac and the rear bumper was just enough to get two hands on the spare, which was a steel spare, and not the shiny alloy which would match the car’s other wheels. Steel spares not only look hideous, they’re even heavier. It took a lot of wiggling and heaving to set the tyre free, during which I scraped my one hand against the bumper, and the other against the tar. Another genius design feature. And I now had to reset the hammock thing.

Now to the jack. A scissor jack. My fuckin’ favourite. Scissor jacks were adapted from torture implements, and I can see why. They are an absolutely pathetic solution to the problem of lifting a car. They are slow, cumbersome and have the most annoying crank system imaginable.

The wheel spanner loosely clips in, at 90 degrees, to a stupid little pole with a hook at the end, a hook which summarily fails to stay in the little hole which turns the screw which lifts the jack. Because of the crank is so short, you have to adopt a stance akin to Quasimodo after an awful curry. And the only way to get any leverage is to scrape your knuckles along the tar at every twist.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Hydraulic jacks, supplied with many cars, are immensely quicker, easier to crank and easier to place underneath the car, but they’re more expensive. They don’t keep moving around in the initial stages either, because they weigh more than a spoon, unlike the scissor jack.

Moving on, with the flat tyre raised off the ground, I began getting the nuts off, which went smoothly. Yanking the big 19incher off the car and throwing it in the boot was a work out. I honestly fear for women who’d have to do this on their own. That thing was damn heavy, and the spare was heavier.

Thankfully I’d learnt a trick or two from my brief involvement in amateur racing. The best way to get the new tyre onto the car is to lean the tyre as close to the wheel hub as possible, sit on the ground, spread your legs and shimmy up to the tyre so its nearing your crotch. You’re now almost eye level with the wheel hub and can line up the spare easily. Now it’s just a quick hoist and the tyres on; a bit of spanner twirling and its time to lower the car, using the knuckle-scrapingly-shite scissor jack.

A quick jump on the spanner for each nut and we’re away. My time? Thirteen minutes. Thirteen solid minutes of swearing, cursing, knuckle torture and heavy lifting. It’s like a bar fight between 500 drunken racehorse owners.

Does it really have to be this way? Surely not. For goodness sake, we’ve put buggies on Mars. We’ve got people living in space. The car has been around for 120 years and we’re now running them on hydrogen and corn syrup. But this dreaded problem that affects and will affect every motorist on Earth, and there are a lot of us, has yet to be made easier and more, importantly, safer. I honestly believe if you don’t know what you’re doing you could hurt yourself. It’s not uncommon for cars to fall off incorrectly placed jacks.

There has been one decent answer so far. Some manufacturers have gone with a technology called Run Flats. These aren’t a bad idea on the face of it. If you suffer a puncture, the tyre can last for up to 250km, if used at 80km/h and no more. For most of us, that’s ace. 250km is more than enough to reach your nearest tyre centre. But then the fun begins. Run Flats are damn expensive. Up to 30% more expensive than regular tyres. Run Flats can’t be repaired, and because you don’t get a spare at all in these sorts of cars, you absolutely have to get a new tyre immediately. Now that is not convenient.

In my opinion, because they cannot be repaired and have to be immediately replaced when damaged, they should be included in the manufacturers’ warranty, or your service agreement. But they’re not, and you have to get a separate insurance policy to cover them. I may be off the mark here, but I feel car makers know they’d be in for a rather large bill if they did cover run flats, and have avoided doing so.

And lastly, from a driver’s point of view, Run Flats ruin the ride. They make the car more jiggly over road imperfections and generally stiffer when you might not want stiffer. You might want comfortable.

Maybe we could start with one wheel nut for cars, like on race cars. That’s got to be possible. I’m not an engineer, but there has to be a solution to this. Because as things stand, if you asked me for one piece of advice on how to change a tyre, I’d tell you to just get a professional to do it.

While I was trawling the interwebs for images, I found this nifty invention. Now that’s thinking. Anyone seen one of these in SA?