GMC Truck Spares, the Dummies Version

Pickup truck spare tire hoist

Although we don't consider ourselves sexist here at the Antisocial network, we have noticed that many a female driver is clueless about how to change a flat tire on her ride. We've also noticed that it's not just women... Although some freelancers are out of their depth when it comes to just finding the spare, today's DotD candidate had the advantage of a search engine when it came to finding the spare tire on a 2006 GMC truck. On the other hand, eHow.com's Thomas West still showed that he'd probably be stranded if that time ever came, at least based on his article "How to Get the Spare Tire Down on a 2006 GMC," which can now be found (without his byline) as part of a group of "instructional posts" at ItStillRuns.com¹.

Oh, West figured out where the spare's hidden, something just about anyone who's driven a pickup truck built since 1970 knows. If you don't, it's tucked up under the bed. Tommy "informed" his readers that GMC's method of dropping the spare is pretty slick and modern, since

"To access the spare tire on older trucks, you had to crawl under the bed, loosen the bracket, and lower the spare tire by hand. You can lower the spare tire on your 2006 GMC in just a few minutes and without having to crawl under the vehicle..."

...which rather surprised our staff's truck owners, whose vehicles range in age from 1988 to 2013 and all of which have a spare wheel lowering system. Guess the truck needs to be older than theirs...

West plumbed the net for instructions, cannily rewording them to avoid the DMS plagiarism screen. In doing so, however, he changed the wording a few times, leading to such rubbish as

"Loosen the wing nut that holds the jack in a counter-clockwise direction."

Misplaced modifiers, anyone? And then there's "Open the plastic cover located on the back bumper next to the license plate by hand. Use your ignition key to open the cover if your truck has the locking spare tire option." Wrong, Thomas: there's a plastic cover on all GMC trucks that's held in place by friction; you use the ignition key to remove an optional lock that's behind the plastic cover if the truck has the "locking spare tire option."Once that's out of the way -- literally -- West describes using the parts of the tire-change kit to access the lowering mechanism: "Insert the ribbed square end of the extension into the hole in the rear bumper until it reaches the lowering mechanism." Umm, shouldn't the end of the extension...we dunno... fit onto something in the mechanism? Sure it should -- otherwise, when you

"Place the lug wrench from the tool pouch onto the other end of the jack handle extension and turn it in a counter-clockwise direction..."

...nothing will happen. Oh, and by the way, DMS content editors: "counter-clockwise direction" is redundant. Thomas continues to explain that you keep lowering "until the spare tire reaches the ground," at which time you should

"Use the hooked end of the wrench to snag the tire lowering cable and pull it towards you to slide the tire from under the vehicle."

Well, no: you keep turning even after the spare wheel reaches the ground to get enough slack in the cable to remove the spare tire holder -- then you can slide the spare out. Otherwise, the cable is too short to allow the spare to move.

West wrote hundreds of articles for eHow.com, of which many supposedly address DIY car maintenance or repair techniques. We've sampled two so far, and both were lacking. Apparently Thomas takes his Dumbass of the Day duties very seriously...

¹ Said group includes the illuminating introduction, "Vehicles is a division of Vehicles Motors Corporation that manufactures light Vehicles and sport utility Vehicles. Modern Vehicles and Vehicles (also owned by Vehicles are almost identical and are manufactured on the same assembly lines, although the Vehicles sports unique front end styling..." Wow: that's "helpful"!

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