NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

- now squat down facing the wheel and hold it in your hands at 4- and 8
o'clock position on the tyre tread, with your forearms braced against
the inside of your thighs; ease the wheel off the central boss

I normally sit on the ground to do that.

Easier to squat down than to sit on the ground

Nope, much easier to sit on the ground with
your legs bent and either side of the wheel.

- and less likely to get a wet

But it isnt as soggy here as there.

or dirty bum!

Trivial to brush off your bum when you are finished.

Also easier to move around

Dont need to move around.

- eg to pivot to one side to put the tyre on the ground and then to pick
up the new tyre and pivot back round to offer it up to the hub.

Dont agree.

I've done that in about 5 mins per wheel. I've swapped over all four
wheels (exchange nearside front and back, and offside front and back)
which needs a total of 6 wheelchanges (allowing for temporarily fitting
and removing the spare) inside half an hour.

I dont bother to rotate the tyres anymore.

Nor me, except that when I bought a new (second hand) car, its front tyres
were a lot more worn than the back ones (though still within the legal
range) so I swapped them round to have more tread on the front driving
wheels.

I dont buy used anymore. Used the previous Golf for 45 years.

Since then, I've gone through several sets of tyres and I've never had the
front ones wear down so much compared with the back ones,

Mine do, because its a FWD and I drive pretty aggressively.

and they've always lasted a lot longer than 18,000 miles which is what the
car had done when I bought it. I'm not sure how the front tyres came to be
so worn in that distance.

Likely by driving pretty aggressively or due to rotating the tyres.

A hexagonal nut on the side, into which you put the wheelbrace, would be
so much better, as you can disconnect the brace and rotate it back from
3 o'clock to 9 o'clock before putting it back on to turn it from 9 to 3
(or vice versa for lower the jack), for the initial stage when there
isn't enough ground clearance to turn the brace through the lower half
of its rotation.

Or just a normal ratchet socket handle.

Yes, that would be even better. Do they make sockets for the range of
wheel nuts used on most cars?

Yep, even much bigger ones that that. I got one for the
beetle, think it was for the wheel bearing, forget now.

But I was talking about using it for the thing on the
end of the long threaded bolt that changes the height
of the parallelogram car jack which is usually supplied.
Mine is a flat with a hole in it which the end of the
wheel brace goes on to rotate it. Normal large sockets
the size of wheel nuts fit fine over that for the initial
winding up of the jack from flat where you can end
up barking your knuckles on the ground initially.