Safe Speed Forums

Where does everyone stand on having a spare wheel? All of my cars thus far have had a full sized spare wheel, jack and a wheel brace. However, it is looking increasingly likely that any replacement I get will only have a space saver if I am lucky.

I am very pleased with my Honda and when the times comes would like another, but the new civic has run flats and no spare. There is space for a space saver, but not enough for a proper one. How far can you go on a space saver? Does it have to be replaced after each use? What is the reason/excuse for a £16k hatchback not having a full sized spare?

I went to a my local Honda dealer on Saturday to give my address to enter the prize draw, but I said I liked my car, but if they want me to buy another, it will need a proper spare and facilities to change it myself. The salesman seemed suprised at my request and said there was not enough space. I pointed out to him that they had engineered the space out of the car, so they could engineer it back in. I asked him how he expected me to get home after 3 pm on a saturday when the tyre fitters have closed and I am 200 miles away at my family's houses. No answer.

Am I alone in being annoyed by this?

My Toyota space saver has a max speed of 50 MPH and (I think) a mileage limit of at least 50 miles in one run, you can re use it again and again as far as I know.

_________________
My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Don't think you'll get any joy. evan my old '88 scirocco had a spacesaver, and even my 3 ton van's spare is labelled 50mph evan though it's near-enough-as-dammit full size. That may be cos it's the fast version with low profile tyres, I think most vans come with full size spares.

The thinking is a) punctures are very rare nowadays (apparently) and b) 75% of the morons out there couldn't change a wheel anyway. Thus the spare is not so relevant as in the past with dodgier tyres, poorer roads* and having basic mechanical knowledge was essential to car ownership.

Someone brainy do a quick calc- fuel cost of carrying a spare vs. AA membership.

*Obv. Britain still has 3rd world farm tracks for arterial roads, but cars are made by germans, french and japs who have the technological supremacy to to make roads flat.

_________________
Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

One reason for these new type spare wheels and run flats is that very few drivers know how to change a wheel it is only us slightly older drivers who have any idea.

My Clio has no spare wheel, but a handy can of foam in case of puncture, so I bought I full-size matching spare.

Cost has a lot to do with it. I guess a full-sized wheel and tyre (even on a fairly cheap car and at OEM prices) can cost £20. Multiply that by 1000 cars a week (or even a day!) and you save quite a lot of money. If you then add to that the saving of not having to supply a jack and wheelbrace, PLUS the saving on a deep pressing for the boot floor (and the tooling that went with it) AND the saving in fuel consumption / CO2 emissions through not having to cart it round with the rest of the car,and it starts to look quite attractive.

If, on top of all that, you get a car with a flatter boot floor and no big discontinuity to mess up its performance in a rear impact AND you get a bigger boot (to boot!), the case against having them starts to look very rosy indeed!

All that said, I don't particularly like space-savers. Run-flats and foam are all very well unless you suffer a bottle cut to the sidewall - in which case you're stuffed. Even the 50 MPH restriction is a pain in the backside on a long run. On some cars, you can't ignore the restriction either because the ABS knows that one wheel is turning at a different speed to the other three and realises the space-saver is on. That then limits the speed to 50!

My 2006 A4 has a full size spare, 17" alloy with 235/45 low(-ish) profile tyre. Never had to use it other than when swapping front/rear tyres around.

Even with the Quattro the front tyres wear down quicker (around 25% faster than the rears). Swap at the point where the tread on the front is just slightly lower than on the rear and they'll then wear evenly and can be replaced all at the same time.

The OEM tyres were Continental Sport Contact 2, these managed about 12,000 miles. I replaced these with Pirelli P-Zero Rosso which did around 17,000 miles.

Did have a set of Bridgestones on for a while but they only did around 14,000 miles. They're a harder compound than the Pirellis but because of this they tend to break grip sooner - and as a result the tyres scrub.

Regarding cost - a replacement alloy is £300 and the tyres are currently clocking in at £100 a pop.

_________________
Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."

Having to replace all four tyres at once is a good thing? Run that past me again.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Ive never really understood the logic of that. Indeed, in the good ole days there were usually instructions in the owners book on how to swap the tyres round with the spare so you got to buy FIVE new tyres all at the same time!

(Cue side thread on the merits of new on front Vs new on rear )

_________________
"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

It doesn't help much if your front tyres are narrower than the back...... And when your spare is a spacesaver well.........

_________________
My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Cost my arse, my first car was a 1986 Skoda Estelle, I don't know how much the person that bought it new spent on it, but I'll bet they got change out of £4K. The spare was exactly the same as the other 4 wheels. If a £4k Skoda Estelle came with a spare, the reason a £16k Civic in the age of compensation doesn't is...??? Tomorrow I am going to weigh my spare, jack and wheel brace on the farm very expensive electronic scales and report back. I would be very interested to know exactly how much fuel I can save by not having a spare. I would be equally interested to know if the amount saved is offset by theamount used by the recovery trucks journey to get me to a tyre fitter at 11.30pm on a Sunday evening.

In this age of safety obsession, why do we get an array of passive safety guff in the car, but if we get a puncture, we get stranded on the hard shoulder for who knows how long?

Adam. When did you last have a puncture on a road vehicle at 1130 on a Sunday night?

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Some years ago I had a rear tyre blowout on the M40 and replaced it with the space-saver spare. I felt very uncomfortable doing 50 along the motorway to the next junction being tailgated and overtaken by truckers who no doubt thought "what a numpty!"

But I was later told that, as long as you're going in a reasonably straight line it's OK to keep up with the trucks. The 50 mph max speed is set because of the space saver's much inferior grip in cornering. I still don't like them, though.

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

The only time I've experienced one, I was surprised just how quickly it wore.

I have had 2 tyre wall issues, but near to home. One I could have got home on, the other went pop.

My family are in Shropshire, I am in Essex. It is not unusual to go there and back in a day, or late on weekends. I don't fancy having to limp home for the sake of carrying a proper spare.

My manager has an 05 3 Series with run flats and no spare. The higher the load (no. of passengers) the shorter your remaining distance on run flats. They tell him he has a flat, but not which tyre is flat. He had to be towed home for a flat tyre, because he was too far from a tyre fitter after closing to get fixed. In the process of being carried home the damaged his car. This, we are told, is progress.

Refresh my memory...

...who owns Skoda now? If they want to be generous and give you a full sized spare, that's very good of them. Plenty of manufacturers of smaller, low performance cars still do. HOWEVER, (and maybe I should have used the term "profit") there's no denying that the company that makes 1000 cars a day and saves £20 a car is saving £20k a day compared to the one that still supplies the spare! Back in 1986, I think almost all "ordinary" cars had a full-sized spare anyway!

"YOU" will save very little fuel by not having a spare. The manufacturer, however, will get his extra 0.1MPG and (more importantly) his couple of grammes less of CO2 per kilometre. Similarly, the manufacturer cares not if there will be an extra 20 tons of CO2 generated by recovery trucks during the car's lifetime. The important thing is that it won't be coming out of the tailpipe HE sold you! In fact, I expect he'd see the CO2 you saved while on the back of the recovery truck as an aded bonus!

And when it comes to safety obsession, as far as he's concerned, it just gets better! Less chance of a litigious owner sueing him over something that went wrong with a DIY wheel change if there's no wheel to change!

As much as anything else, I think it's because of the differing level of braking grip (and maybe offset) of the space saver. If you had to brake hard, the car would be likely to pull to one side - quite strongly in some cases, I believe!

The corsa with a bike rack does it at the expense of a spare wheel, the polo blue motion gets its zero road tax at the price of a spare wheel. the wheel well still exists and id full of a foam tray filler with a can of gunk.Safety features are added and withdrawn to achieve co2 tax bands and ncap safety stars. If a car cant make the top rating then they remove a basket of features to just maintain the next rating.

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

I thought that the reason many performance cars didn't have full size spares is down to space. Modern tyres are huge compared with those of the golden age but seem to be much more robust if properly looked after. I have never had sudden, catastrophic loss of inflatent incident in my entire motoring career. I have had several slow punctures so I always carry a small compressor.

If the lack is a real concern there is nothing to stop you from buying a full size spare.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

All the points raised above are relevant.

- Different size wheels front/rear
- Too large to fit in car
- Expensive and heavy
- Reasonable run flats now available.
- Wheel ESP sensors get confused by space savers

Neither of my cars has a spare. I do have a foam kit but I'd probably never use it.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.