I've not changed enough tires in my days to tell you whether these are golden or not... but they do the job... the fork has a flat side and a beveled side, flat side needs to be against the tire... the beveled side has an angled slot for the lifter to slide into, slide it in, put the irons together and push them down together... that's it, the bead should be broken... I will say its important to get the fork as far into the bead as possible... first time using them, I wasn't getting it in far enough and just built up my frustrations... but if you get the fork all the way into the bead (not the lower sidewall), the bead will break and you will have success... I actually used some light hammering to get it all the way into the bead... great investment, half the cost of the "others" out there like this...