I had a flat tire this morning in our 2009 Cobalt SS Turbo.

Typically, you'd loosen the lug nuts, jack up the front end of the car, remove the flat tire on the front and then replace the flat tire with the spare.

Now, just a heads up for those of you Cobalt owners out there - its not that simple.

If you have a Cobalt SS and you have a flat front tire, because of the huge caliper on the front end of the car, you'll need to jack up the whole side of the car, remove both the front wheel and the rear wheels. Then you'll need to move the rear wheel to the front, and then install the spare on the rear.

Why you might ask ? Well, its because GM didnt make a seperate spare wheel for the Cobalt SS. They instead give you a regular Cobalt spare, and then put a sticker on the INSIDE of the wheel that tells you to swap the rear wheel for the front in case of you having a flat front tire.

Just wanted to post this to hopefully save someone some time in the future in case of a flat.

 

Damn i never thought of that!

Thats good to know thanks for the Info!

 

thanks for the note

Sticky???

 

I thought that was common knowledge? I knew that back in late 06' when I had my 07' ss/sc

 

Oh, yeah, Im sure it was common knowledge back in 2006, for Supercharged guys.

As the three posters above you have shown, its not common knowledge for Turbo guys.

 

You never put a spare on the front. You always move a good wheel from the back, put it up front, and put the spare on the back.

I can see the issue because of the caliper, but it should be pretty obvious that you wouldn't want to throw off your steering by having a smaller diameter wheel up front.

 

Sure, its nice to have the luxury and time to do all this swapping around, but sometimes when your on the freeway, or in a dangerous part of town you dont have that luxury.

 

it was for me...i mean common sense is that nothing under some odd 17"s fit the brembo's...so logically you'd have to move a rear tire.

 

If you have two different sized tires on the front you can add a lot of stress to your diff in the car. From what I understand and have been told is that you should never put a compact spare on a drive wheel or different diameter tires for that matter. I would assume that AWD cars from the factory come with either an inflation kit or a full sized spare as options to protect the drivetrain.

 

well i guess a jack stand now gets added to my list of needed BS "just in case" things to carry around in my trunk.. good to know

 

Why would you need a jackstand?

 

Even if you put the jack at the front side jack point that whole side of the car comes off the ground, the bodies pretty rigid.

 

I think the "Safest" method is to use that stock shitty jack, pump the rear, swap tires. lower car, go to front and jack up front. swap tires. long painful process but again the "safest". I assume someone will try using that shitty stock jack to jack the middle of the car and try to swap all tires that way; it may work...and it may fall over

 

All you need to do is jack the rear. pull the tire off and put on the spare. Let the jack down and then jack the front and change that tire. I don't think you would need the Jack and a Jackstand for a side of the road repair.

you beat me to it northvibe

 

im sorry, but i thought that was already known by most turbo guys, i know i knew about it before i even bought my car.

 

lol.. thanks guys.. it's a little something called facetious humor

ya know, along with our new once a year O2 sensor, new plugs every oil change, ect ect..

I keep it all in a little BS "just in case" box in my trunk

 

I gotcha. I sometimes can't tell if posts are meant to be funny on the net or not... and i missed the quotes on your "just in case".

 

Ah all Cobalts come with free road side assitance from GM, so if it's still valid on your car you call the 800 number and they send a person who will do that for you while you watch

 

qft...

Plus even if it did fit and you have the LSD option (G85) you'd be torturing it!

 

yeah it's all good. It's hard to make sarcasm come across properly on the net, unless you write books for a living and know how to express yourself in writing.. I'm too dumb to make it work apparently.. lol

 

yeah i keep the oil change tools in my trunk too, otherwise they get lost in the "tools" draw

 

Wow... GM even went to the effort of putting a sticker in the trunk too! Imagine that!

 

I was thinking about that the other day actually haha

 

Push the on-star button

 

+1....spare on front = bad idea, especially on FWD.

I know this topic was brought up a long time ago when the SS/TC first came out, but either way its good to post it again for those who arent aware