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Do you need a spare wheel?


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I always have a spare wheel in cars and in the 110. The most recent puncture wasn't mine. I was on a campsite in N. Wales last summer and stopped a young guy who hadn't noticed that he had a flat. Also he didn't know what to do and was going to call his breakdown company. I checked that he had a spare and then showed him what to do and it the correct order, such as crack the studs before lifting.

I ran over a big nail on a country lane near here in my A6 - that quickly went flat and changing it meant I was back home and getting it sorted easily. Had a blowout on a caravan on an Oxfordshire road and changed that at the roadside. Again it was quicker than waiting for recovery to come.

When towing a trailer I (nearly) always throw in the spare wheel as I wouldn't want to leave it at the side of the road or call-out recovery.

I do make sure that there's a decent bar and socket in our car and 110 (even when no other tools) so that cracking the studs is easy.

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I carry one, and it has been needed twice.  On neither occasion, by me!  For Mrs P's car, we've needed the "space saver" to get us to a garage to repair a puncture, but I'm 95% sure I could have got there on the tyre with the puncture anyway.

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19 hours ago, smallfry said:

A couple of years ago when we had a place in Cumbria , I had a hard lesson about carrying a spare.

I had fitted a nice new set of four Goodyear all season tyres to my Astra, the following day I loaded it up with things to go there (we live in Kent) new front door and some ladders on the roof bars and all. I would have normally taken a trailer, but it had an engine on it, and I couldnt be bothered to take it off ! Because I had tools, SWMBO her friend and the dog etc, I had the bright idea of taking the spare wheel out of its well, in order to cram some more stuff in. What a bad mistake that turned out to be ..................

Arrived Friday, and the plan was to fit the front door and do some other maintenance work, then come home Sunday afternoon/evening, then all three of us back to work on Monday. All went well until we set off for home around 3pm on Sunday. Turning the car round to get out, I clipped a piece of steel sticking out of a derelict gate, which neatly ripped the sidewall out of one of the new front tyres.

The place is half a mile up an unsurfaced track, there is no mobile signal, its Sunday afternoon, and I have no spare wheel, wheelbrace or jack (took the toolkit out as well) and have to be back the next day. Green Flag wouldnt help as I should have had a spare. Anchors. Eventually managed to get the wheel off with an old box spanner from the shed, having lifted the car with some fence posts and a lot of swearing. No chance of getting a new tyre or spare wheel, so had to wait until the following morning. None of us could let work know we wouldnt be in (no phone signal remember) Not much a problem for me, but big problem for SWMBO and her friend.

Next morning I walked down to main road carrying the wheel/tyre, which was quite a trial, then waited an hour for the bus into town. Of course no tyre specialist there, so was held to ransom by local garage charging tourist rates. Budget tyre cost more than the Goodyear ! Back on the bus a couple of hours later, and a half mile uphill walk with the wheel and tyre. Refitted it the best I could, bearing in mind I couldnt do the bolts up properly, and eventually set off for home at 4pm. I stopped at a farm to borrow a socket to do the nuts up properly. Traffic was a nightmare and we eventually arrived home just gone midnight.

So yes, I always now carry a spare. And a puncture plug kit. Wouldnt even entertain NOT having one now.

I understand that if your vehicle is meant to have a spare wheel and you do not have one, some of the breakdown and recovery companies will refuse to attend, so you might want to check that out with whoever you use

I had a similar experience many years back, only in deepest darkest Wales. We were in a mate's company Mazda 5, off on a mountaineering weekend. We hit a rock on the side of a narrow single track road which wrecked the tyre. Having found the car had no spare, and realised the compressor and can of snot was no use at all, we limped on to a place we could stop and other traffic could pass. A 10 minute walk to higher ground where we had a mobile signal, then trying to describe the the RAC operator where we where.....what's your address, what's the street number of the nearest house? The poor woman had no idea what to do with an OS grid reference, so we gave turn by turn directions from the nearest town, which was a good 20 mins drive away. What a palava! 2 hours later a breakdown van turns up, removes the damaged wheel and tyre and takes said mate off to find a tyre shop...on a Sunday... in the back end of Wales. Meanwhile the rest of us went off on a walk. Several hours later we returned to the car to find the breakdown chappy refitting the wheel, which was now wearing an eyewateringly expensive new tyre.

That is why I always carry a serviceable spare.

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Well I needed one last week on my Mondeo; ran over a screw which ripped they tyre and the local garage didn't have a tyre till the next day. I wouldn't want a car without a spare of some sort. Re spacesavers, they are OK  maybe for local use, but years back I was killing time while my Audi was being serviced, and I wandered into the VW section where the salesman was keen I look at a Toureg. So I asked where was the spare and he showed me a spindly spacesaver in a well under the boot floor (bearing in mind it was on very fat tyres) At that time I was regularly doing 200 mile journeys to and from my mother's at weekends, so I asked, OK, "It's Sunday night, throwing it down, I'm returning home with kids asleep and the (Alsatian) dog on the luggage behind, we get a puncture - what then? He said, " Oh put the space saver on",so I said "it's only allowed to do 50 miles, we need 200, and what do you do with a big dirty sopping wet rear wheel with a flat tyre (which won't go in the spacesaver well) - do VW have a rim recovery service, you just tell them where it is and they'll return it to you? Or do you put it on one of the passengers' lap?" He said "good question, hadn't thought of that."

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@EscapeI used to have a Lotus Esprit S1 which only had a spare front wheel, but the back wheels were a much larger diameter and completely different offset, I never had a puncture but always wondered what to do if it had a rear puncture.

Edited by oneandtwo
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@oneandtwo I bet you regret no longer having the Esprit!

I'm not 100% sure about the S1, my experience is mainly with the later Stevens Esprit. Those have a space saver spare, about the same diameter as the front wheels but narrower. It fits the rear as well, but obviously only suited for emergency use. I suspect the same would work on the S1, the different offset shouldn't be a problem and the difference in size is smaller than on later models.

The main problem when you get a flat on the rear is where to put that rear tyre after fitting the spare! Maybe the narrow 205 on an S1/S2 would just fit the front? No room for wider tyres up front, but the rear boot on later models is shaped so it will just accept a rear tyre (though it must be very very tight with the wide tyres of the Sport 300 and V8!). And that only works when you don't have other stuff in there. A good tip I got for doing a roadtrip with an Esprit is to use only soft bags, not hard suitcases. That gives you more options to move stuff around if need be. But then we all know women prefer their hard case trolleys. 🙂

All this talk about spare wheels and the horror stories about not having one has made me want to check all spares! And throw one in the Range Rover again (along with a jack and wrench)...

Filip

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34 minutes ago, Escape said:

@oneandtwo All this talk about spare wheels and the horror stories about not having one has made me want to check all spares! And throw one in the Range Rover again (along with a jack and wrench)...

Filip

Indeed. You will never regret having a spare, apart from the weight, but does that matter really ? But you can regret very much NOT having one. Also, how many of you who have a spare tucked away in a well in the boot or on a cage underneath actually check it ? No good at all if its flat when its needed !

Regarding the Lotus and similar, I can just imagine your weekend away to Saint Moritz with Girl/boyfriend/wife/partner and luggage, and the looks you would get when they have to have a nice big grubby wheel and tyre on their lap because there is nowhere else to put it ! Would take the glamour off it somewhat.

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1 hour ago, smallfry said:

Regarding the Lotus and similar, I can just imagine your weekend away to Saint Moritz with Girl/boyfriend/wife/partner and luggage, and the looks you would get when they have to have a nice big grubby wheel and tyre on their lap because there is nowhere else to put it ! Would take the glamour off it somewhat.

Our trips are usually to a the English countryside or Wales, I don't do glamour. 😉 But yes, would be interesting to have to put the grubby wheel somewhere. Luckily I don't offroad the Esprit (not too much anyway...).

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I was thinking about this yesterday, you seldom hear of a fuse going on an electrical appliance these days: that doesn't mean you'd do away with the fuse......

First thingi did for the Volvo, spare wheel kit. Second thing? Subwoofer in the spare wheel well.

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5 hours ago, smallfry said:

a nice big grubby wheel and tyre on their lap because there is nowhere else to put it

Have I imagined it or was there an instance of a non- flat one exploding when being carried like that and causing a horrible injury?

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My daily has run flats which give some peace of mind when there's no option for putting a spare anywhere (2015 Mini). I'd much rather have an actual spare but that's sadly not an issue. 

I've yet to need a spare on the daily and I'm doing ~15K miles a year. So if you add the years up I've done ~200K miles in my personal cars. Work wise I've had to use a spare on two occasions in the last 15 years working for them (Catering company so not mega miles). Both occasions were time pressed. One fridge van full of food got a puncture on the way into Oxford I needed the spare as there wasn't the time to get another van to shift the food or wait for recovery so luckily that van has a spare. The other time was early hours of the morning in a fully loaded van after a long days job. Changed the wheel in the biggest thunderstorm I've ever seen. I'd take that over sitting it out waiting for recovery as that spot is a pain in the arse to find.

My sister and my parents have both had a pothole take a chunk out of a sidewall too, not a leak that a can of snot and a pump is going to fix. Luckily those cars both had actual spares. That said the volvo is a comical one. XC60 spare wheel wasn't an option I believe on the later ones they've had so they've transferred it between the last three. The comical part - the donut spare is the same item across everything from the XC90 to the C30 at the time :lol:.

I'd never go offroad without a spare, the risk of doing a tyre irreparably in the middle of nowhere doesn't fill me with joy!

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Tyre pyrolysis. A tyre can explode hours (think of a scary number of hours and then double it) after heating as the rubber will decompose, normally after workshop-based activities like heating studs or welding on the rim and will happily kill a person if close enough. It can also happen by less obvious routes, such as from stuck brakes.

However, if you're changing a wheel, it's likely that the tyre has a puncture and any build up of gas would just vent to atmosphere. If you were worried, you could pull the valve.

Or not hug it quite as tightly.

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This tyre exploded of its own accord when I was working in Malawi. The car hadn't been used that day, had been parked in the sun and exploded around lunchtime. Twas quite a bang and luckily no-one was around!

tyre_explode.thumb.jpg.660e7fc78292ee57c1ec1d96b0f9d86c.jpg

I still carry a spare around as it feels right, although never had a puncture (yet) in the UK; at one point had 7 punctures in 8 months overseas, but that was mostly due to old and worn tyres.

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And guess what I have been doing this afternoon ........................

Got a plaintive phone call from M-i-L, she is 79. Had a flat tyre in local Sainsburys car park. She got the tools and spare out of the boot herself, but because of the knees and hips, couldn't get down enough to place the jack, bless her. So she called the orange van breakdown service. They said there was no one local, and the wait would be about three hours. She doesn't like playing the frail old lady card, or being a burden. (pride eh ?) NOT ONE person offered to help her in the busy car park, hence the call to me.

So, I loaded a trolley jack , breaker bar and sockets etc, and off I went. Its about 5 miles. Undid the nuts, which were stupidly tight, and jacked up the car, its a two year old Kia Venga with alloy wheels. Could I get the wheel off the hub ? No chance. Corroded solid to the hub. So came back here, dropping her off at home with her shopping.

I collected axle stands and my big Thor hide hammer and some blocks of wood, and the afterthought small sledge hammer, and went back. I lifted it on axle stands and got the jack out of the way, and started beating the wheel off from behind with the hide hammer, but it still wouldnt come off. So then placed a wooden block against the inside of the rim, lay on the floor with the sledge hammer, and after a few blows it shifted. At last. Space saver on, and tools back in the car. I will go later to rescue the car when SWMBO comes back from shopping.

Not a trace of anti seize grease on the hub, wheel, or studs from new. I dont think the wheels have been off before. I thought greasing the wheel hubs when alloy wheels are fitted should have done from new, and/or is part of service schedules  ?

Again, good job there was a spare. Also, anti seize your hubs and wheels, another thing that can save a lot of grief ! 

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3 minutes ago, smallfry said:

Not a trace of anti seize grease on the hub, wheel, or studs from new. I dont think the wheels have been off before. I thought greasing the wheel hubs when alloy wheels are fitted should have done from new, and/or is part of service schedules  ?

Again, good job there was a spare. Also, anti seize your hubs and wheels, another thing that can save a lot of grief ! 

Friends called me to help them get a wheel of their Ibiza. That took an absolute beating with a lump hammer and a block of wood. Eventually got it off with my right foot. 

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The Fun Prevention Officer has form...

 

Once with a Mini - she managed to hit a pothole on a country road (actually an unfortunately common occurrence around here...) and damaged the rim so that the tyre wouldn’t seal.  The can of gloop worked until the wheel had gone precisely two revolutions, whereupon it was flat again!

 

Then, the other day, I got the panic call saying she’d ‘driven over something’

 

5A39B4F9-2D98-47C0-BAE1-221B22D75651.thumb.jpeg.eb855314f4d5e418baf87cc0514d0fe9.jpeg

 

Needless to say, I’m a firm believer in having a spare...!

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23 hours ago, Will@LRW said:

This tyre exploded of its own accord when I was working in Malawi. The car hadn't been used that day, had been parked in the sun and exploded around lunchtime. Twas quite a bang and luckily no-one was around!

tyre_explode.thumb.jpg.660e7fc78292ee57c1ec1d96b0f9d86c.jpg

 

I don't reckon a can of squirty foam is going to fix that.

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For regular punctures, sticky tyre plugs work very well if you have a pump or compressor to air the tyre back up.  Used them loads in Africa and just came across a wheel & tyre in the workshop I repaired with a plug in north Africa 14 years ago- still fully inflated.  Used one of those plugs and a self tapper to fix a big fuel tank leak once as well - useful things to carry. 

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