Do you carry a spare?

[vonthrash]

Impending MOTs for two of my fleet have got me thinking about spare wheel options.

One has a spare but no jack or wheel brace, and the other has the tools but no wheel. Obviously this can be rectified, but should I bother? Are those emergency cans of sealant realistic alternative? A third project now has no room for a spare, and I only got 4 wheels banded for it so what am I going to do there? If I do get a spare, will I have to make sure it's the same rolling radius? Will it cream the gearbox if it isn't? I'd have to buy a seriously low entry jack to change it, and there's no room for that either. How do other members with muchawesome wheels deal with the predicament? Is this thread just an excuse to tart off my new wheels? . . . so many questions . . .



I have had very few punctures in my time, obviously the existence of this thread will now fully invoke the law of the sod with immediate effect.

[Deleted]

Carrying a spare and a modest collection of tools is a wise precaution, even a space saver can at least get you home if something catastrophic happens to your tyres far away from home and help. There is nothing more infuriating though than getting a flat tyre, pulling out the spare and finding out it too is flat from the last time you got a flat tyre and you forgot to sort it out.

For low entry jacks, you can get an inflating jack that runs off the car battery or exhaust pipe, they're amazing and take up very little space, perfect if you're a bit stuck for where to put a cumbersome tool. They're essentially a bag that inflates to lift the car, different ones for different load ratings, but certainly good enough for changing a wheel should you get caught short.


Oh, and nice wheels, btw.

[EmDee]

meh, just makes the car heavier.

I have narrowed the rear beam on my weekend car to fit stupid wheels so even if I carried a spare I'd need a 20mm spacer and longer bolts to go with it. Probably need a block of wood to park on to use the widowmaker too. The weight of the spare and all the bits could then invoke reverse rake *horrified face*.

I guess another question to add to list is whether the "two of your fleet" are driven frequently enough to warrant the extra faff. I do generally have some form of spare in the cars I drive daily - I'm not a total idiot...

[joe90]

you will find that you won't get anyone to repair the puncture if you fill it with the stuff in a can because it stays like a liquid in the tyre and you can't clean it enough for the glue for the patch/plug to stick, and the fitter gets covered in white curse word, so a normal repairable puncture will mean a new tyre.

Bryan

[stevieclj]

As above, some places won't touch a wheel if its had the repair gunk in it, it take too long to clean, and its extremely messy when you try.

The repair gunk would also be useless on a blow out too! Plenty of roadside tyre companies out there, why bother with a spare?

[composimmonite]

I always want a spare however my Smart hasn't got one nor space to carry. Makes me paranoid about getting a puncture despite a pump and separate bottle of junk that is supplied now with cars. I think at very least you need breakdown service membership if no spare carried otherwise be prepared to get stung if a puncture in a remote place or on motorway etc.

[SauceDoctor]

I always carry a spare, and a full size one at that. Not long ago a friend of mine was run off the road by an overtaking van. My pal's car suffered a blowout, and all she had was a bottle of pink gunge and a pump thing (Ford CMAX OE). No damn use. Luckily, I was able to borrow a Mondeo wheel off a mate to get her car home.

As far as munching the gearbox goes: if your spare wheel has a different RR from the rest, just put it on an undriven hub. That is to say, for example if you get a flat front tyre in a FWD car, replace the flat tyre with one of the back ones, and put the odd size wheel on the back.

I can't do this with my AWD X Type, so the spare is a full size alloy, exactly the same as the other ones (so is the tyre)

[bortaf]

Jack bags are cr@p TBH, only good for an off roader IME, they take up way more space than a normal jack, if there's not a nice smooth surface to sit them on they puncture (seat bolts, ex calmps ect ect), place them wrongs and body parts get bent, just carry a small propper jack IMHO, as for the gunk, it ruins what ever tyre you put it in and will only seal maybe 75% of small punctures, it OK if it's all you have but given the choice i'd carry a spare of some sort anyday (even if it's narrower than your normal wheel tyre combo), the diff will take up the differance in R radius to a point, thats what a diff does, allows wheels to roll at differant speeds, an LSD is a differant matter though.
Does a spare wheel and a small jack make that much differance in weight ? i meen really? is the car a perminant hill climber or constantly trying to acheive the most MPG, taping up the body gaps with gaffa tape will make more differance to the MPG than carrying a spare !

[mungo]

I don't bother with a spare unless I'm going a super long distance (ie abroad) on my weekend/fun car.
I know i can rely on friends or family (or the AA) to hook me up in the very unlikely
event of getting a puncture.....I've been driving for over 20 now and the only puncture I've ever had
was a very large self tapper screw in my back tyre which appeared after a run down the strip at santa pod !!!
probably from the traveller pit area.

[starionturbo]

I never used to carry a spare, not until this happened on a (thankfully empty) duel carriage way about 5am last year......



Not sure a can of sealant would sort this

[Deleted]

Aug 26, 2014 15:11:11 GMT starionturbo said:

I never used to carry a spare, not until this happened on a (thankfully empty) duel carriage way about 5am last year......



Not sure a can of sealant would sort this

Not with that attitude, it wont! ;D

I carry a spare in my van, and most of the oldies.. Just seems strange having the spare wheel well in the back, and no spare in it

[andyborris]

Not sure what the answer to this question is, just wanted to say, really nice wheels!

[Dez]

depends how far I'm going. running around locally i don't bother, if its withing beer bribing of mates range, anything over 30 miles or so i'll sling it in the bed. this is purely to stop it getting nicked mind, as its in the open bed of a '30s pickup.
in them there modern cars made after the 50s or so, that have a specific shaped receptacle within the vehicle for carrying such a device, i dodnt really see why anyone wouldnt?

[BenzBoy]

If you have no space for a spare then you can't carry one, but if there is room, as Dez sez, I can't see why you wouldn't?
I'd feel a right idiot waiting for an hour or more for a man to come and change a wheel for me, rather than just getting on with it and changing it myself and being on my way again in 5 minutes or so.

As for lowered cars, just carry a lump of wood and a decent scissor jack - not the crappy half jacks most manufacturers insist on using, but the full scissor jobs. That should get under most cars with the aforementioned wood. They're cheap, light and don't take up much room.

I also bin off any locking nuts that are on my cars. This isn't 1992 - People steal your car these days, not your wheels.

[MrSpeedy]

The majority of supercars don't carry spares. If it's good enough for them ..........etc etc

I have a spare in the Trump, but tbh, I have no actual idea if it's any good or even inflated! I do have a jack and wheel brace though. I have no kit whatsoever on the 400E, but mainly because there is nowhere to securely store them without fear of theft.

My old 190E I just carried a can of instant 'get you home sh1t in a can' and never once needed it in 4 years

[georgeb]

I do carry a spare. It's a must here. The Philippine AA has made itself almost impossible to join by having a website where none of the forms work, tyres in my size generally would need to be ordered, that's if you're anywhere near anyone to order from and being stuck in the wilds with a flat, no spare and no (useful for tyre repair purposes) language is just a no-no. There are still kidnapping gangs and armed hijackers roaming around outside Manila, so as a "white guy", it pays to be mobile as much as possible. 10 minutes spent changing a wheel and being on the way again is far preferable to hanging around for hours whilst someone peers through the bushes at you, mentally calculating the ransom!

My new wheel/tyre combo wont fit in the wheel well but that now makes a useful storage for tools and with the wheel face down in the back it's a great place for putting shopping bags full of wine/beer etc to stop them rolling around!

Handily, mine's fitted with a third row of rearwards facing seats (which I don't use) and with these folded down, the spare sits on top which leaves space underneath to access the toolbox, jack etc.

[timmy201]

I do, only because the 10" wheels on my mini have history of going flat. It's been a long running comedy of leaky valves and dodgy inner tubes...

The one time I left my tool box at home I had a flat while driving 100kph, so while I had my jack, I didn't have my planks of wood to drive onto! (it was only a 20km round trip to a local car show too).

And the chances of anyone happening to have a useful spare mini wheel and tyre to suit a drum braked car are pretty slim!

[ChasR]

Supercars are hardly driven as dailies, and generally if you can afford a supercar you can probably afford the tow .

I never used to carry a spare in my cars until I was caught out one and more scarily on a couple of other occasions. Maybe these tyre companies are throwing nailes outside their place. The moderns have a space saver, the Porker a factory collapsible spare, and the Stag the factory alloy. On those I have never had to use them, although at one point both of those were daily drivers.

It is a fair point about the gunge. If the puncture is severe enough most tyre people will near enough scrap the tyre due to the utter mess and time it takes to clear up the stuff.

[ferny]

Never used to carry one in the Herald except when I was doing distant events, then I'd carry two. I didn't fancy being stuck somewhere in the middle of the night whilst it was chucking it down and I had no phone reception.
Then I started carrying one and a trolley jack. Knowing the whole time that the trolley jack never went under the car when it had air in its tyres, so how on Earth would I be able to use it when one was flat?
Now I carry a proper one with a scissor jack and make sure it's inflated! Wouldn't trust it for distance though as it's an old rubber, so it's like a full-size space saver.
If you carry gunk, make sure you have a compressor to inflate the tyre when you put it in and after you've driven a few miles as it'll deflate slightly before it seals.


The work car was meant to have a compressor and a bottle of gunk as standard, but mine never did. Twice I had to wait for recovery to a tyre centre. One day it took over four hours to get it repaired. This was at 11am, by the A1, near Stevenage!

[welshpug]

Always carry a spare, every puncture in the last 12 years would never have been fixed with a can of sticky wibblepoo, 5min swapping a wheel at 11pm last week in a single track west welsh lane kept me rolling.

When an 8x17 fits in the spare wheel well, and the car comes with tools I've no reason not to!

most scissor jacks go low enough for even the daftest of ride heights ime.

yes you do need the same rolling radius, by law as well as personal safety.