FREE REPAIR MANUALS & LABOR GUIDES 1982-2013 Vehicles
Courtesy of Operation CHARM: Car repair manuals for everyone.

36 00 ... Recommendation For Heating Tires Before Removing or Installing

36 00 ... Recommendation for heating tires before removing or installing
Recommendation for heating cold tires to minimum installation temperature +15 °C:

To ensure injury-free tire fitting, in particular the upper side wall and the upper tire bead must have a temperature of at least 15 °C on the inside.

To ensure easier tire installation, a temperature of 20° to 25° C is recommended.

This internal temperature is called the core temperature.

Rubber is a poor conductor of heat. For this reason, a cold tire must rest for a sufficient length of time in a warmed-up environment until the inner rubber layers have warmed up to at least 15 °C.

The surface temperature of the tire during the warm-up phase is not a measure of the internal temperature!

The room temperature is normally measured and read off at eye level. At 19 °C at eye level the temperature on the floor is approx. 16 °C. In other words, do not lay tires directly on a cold floor to warm up; instead, lay them at least on an insulating surface, such as a pallet, or even higher.

To ensure that cold tires absorb the heat from the ambient air as quickly as possible, they should not be stacked but rather stored individually so that they are thoroughly "immersed" in the warm ambient air.

Do not under any circumstances place tires in front of a radiant heater or a hot air blower as harmful surface temperatures are very quickly reached in this situation. Apart from heating with warm water or with warm recirculated air (max. 50 °C, no hotter), there is no other way of heating a tire without damaging the tire!

If a cold tire (under 0 °C) is introduced into a warm environment (over 0 °C), a layer of frost will form immediately on the tire surface. This frost layer shows that the tire is absorbing heat intensively from its surroundings through condensation of the moisture in the air. When the frost layer has melted, condensation water forms; dry off this water with a cloth so that the subsequent warming-up process is not slowed down by latent heat.

Summary:

Starting from a min. room temperature of 19°C:
- Tires at initial temperature of 0 °C and higher: store for at least 2 hours
- Tires at initial temperature below 0 °C: store for at least 2.5 hours

Recommendations for heating:
- Store on an insulating surface - a pallet or similar - at as high a level as possible "Upper" tire bead facing upwards
- Position tires individually so that they can be thoroughly "immersed" in warm air
- Wipe off condensation water
- Do not point heaters at tires