Space saver wheels

[Cousin Jack]

I have no spare, and no place to put one. Touch wood, my can of instant fix has never been used. If it ever becomes necessary I have no faith at all that it will work.

[Silly Car]

FWIW I'd get a recommended space saver wheel for that vehicle, for my own peace of mind. You can probably sell it on eBay for most of what you paid when you come to change cars again.

Blimey, words of sense from the Pony!

That’s what happens when you give a sufficient number of monkeys a typewriter each

[Count Steer]

I have no spare, and no place to put one. Touch wood, my can of instant fix has never been used. If it ever becomes necessary I have no faith at all that it will work.

The liquid provided with new cars also has a 'use by' date but almost no-one replaces it on the date so there's another reason why it might not work when needed.

[roadster]

I have owned two cars without spare wheels and in both cases puncture repair kits were of no use whatsoever when tyres suffered sidewall splits due to poor roads. My current car (Nissan) bought this year offered a space saver option but on delivery they reneged and gave me a refund which covered the cost of a third party steel space saver with some change. Never again will I be without one.

I have tested that it fits front and rear - tight but OK!

[Wossname]

Our Up GTi came with no spare, but a “repair kit”. The previous ordinary Up which I was trading had a full size spare, so I did a swap, having checked that it fitted. So the next buyer of my old car got a fancy new repair kit, lucky person.

Have I needed my full size spare, in 65k miles? Just proves the point….

[Wossname]

And… daughter has a Citroen Relay based camper van. She had a blowout on the M4, spare wheel winch system wouldn’t lower the spare, even when they cut the cables. Had to get a tyre fitter to come out, take her wheel back to depot, replace the tyre and return to fit it. It’s a common problem apparently, and I’m not sure how to get the wheel off to replace the mechanism. More thinking needed…. And an angle grinder.

[Sunny]

You lot must live in really well maintained road areas

We've had four punctures this year already* across our two cars - resulting in three new tyres needed. Plus two on the quad, and I've just got one on the mower too

I will never be without a spare wheel (and a breaker bar, to offset over-excited wheel fitters) of some description in the car, end of.
I reckon Pony is right though. Which is what I was hoping to avoid, but hey. Anybody want a Q3 space saver?


*I wish I was exaggerating, it's been so bad we started referring to it as 'the year of the puncture'.

[Rockburner]

You lot must live in really well maintained road areas

We've had four punctures this year already* across our two cars - resulting in three new tyres needed. Plus two on the quad, and I've just got one on the mower too

I will never be without a spare wheel (and a breaker bar, to offset over-excited wheel fitters) of some description in the car, end of.
I reckon Pony is right though. Which is what I was hoping to avoid, but hey. Anybody want a Q3 space saver?


*I wish I was exaggerating, it's been so bad we started referring to it as 'the year of the puncture'.

You should see have seen the roads around here earlier in the year (the council have fixed a LOT of potholes in the last month or two).

We had one pothole just 100 yards from our place that caught multiple people per day, it was evil:


That lump at the left side was at least an inch and a half high (the photo doesn't do it justice), and so it wrecked tyres instantly.

I think I changed 4 tyres in 1 day, and we had at least 1 person stop in our driveway (the next available space on the road) every day.

Most drivers had no clue how to even find their spare, let alone change it.

Funniest thing was finding a Porsche branded Continental tyre fixing kit with spare (full) bottle of sauce lying in the verge, someone had obviously come a cropper, attempted a fix, and then driven off without collecting their kit.

[Skub]

You should see have seen the roads around here earlier in the year (the council have fixed a LOT of potholes in the last month or two).

We had one pothole just 100 yards from our place that caught multiple people per day, it was evil:


That lump at the left side was at least an inch and a half high (the photo doesn't do it justice), and so it wrecked tyres instantly.

I think I changed 4 tyres in 1 day, and we had at least 1 person stop in our driveway (the next available space on the road) every day.

Most drivers had no clue how to even find their spare, let alone change it.

Funniest thing was finding a Porsche branded Continental tyre fixing kit with spare (full) bottle of sauce lying in the verge, someone had obviously come a cropper, attempted a fix, and then driven off without collecting their kit.

Keep the pothole and use it as a business venture.

[Mr. Dazzle]

We've had four punctures this year already* across our two cars - resulting in three new tyres needed. Plus two on the quad, and I've just got one on the mower too

You might want to move somewhere other than next door to a nail factory

[Rockburner]

You should see have seen the roads around here earlier in the year (the council have fixed a LOT of potholes in the last month or two).

We had one pothole just 100 yards from our place that caught multiple people per day, it was evil:


That lump at the left side was at least an inch and a half high (the photo doesn't do it justice), and so it wrecked tyres instantly.

I think I changed 4 tyres in 1 day, and we had at least 1 person stop in our driveway (the next available space on the road) every day.

Most drivers had no clue how to even find their spare, let alone change it.

Funniest thing was finding a Porsche branded Continental tyre fixing kit with spare (full) bottle of sauce lying in the verge, someone had obviously come a cropper, attempted a fix, and then driven off without collecting their kit.

Keep the pothole and use it as a business venture.

One person did actually force a tenner into my hand!

[Scotsrich]

And… daughter has a Citroen Relay based camper van. She had a blowout on the M4, spare wheel winch system wouldn’t lower the spare, even when they cut the cables. Had to get a tyre fitter to come out, take her wheel back to depot, replace the tyre and return to fit it. It’s a common problem apparently, and I’m not sure how to get the wheel off to replace the mechanism. More thinking needed…. And an angle grinder.

Used to drive that type of van, Citroen, Fiat etc and our company used to take the spare off and leave them in the depot.

Inevitably if you tried to get them off at the side of the road they’d be completely stuck. A stupid design and simply replacing the mechanism is just moving the problem till the next time.

I can’t quite remember the layout but the mechanism is right inside the rim when it’s fully in place so you can’t cover it in any way.

The workaround would be taking it off every so often and packing it with grease. But who wants to do that?

[Wossname]

Chapter 2 of daughter’s story … the other back tyre blew a couple of weeks later, on the M50 this time, obv before she’d been able to sort the spare out! Same rigmarole…

[Mr. Dazzle]

I've never had a tyre blow out, I can't think of anyone I know anyone who has.

2 on the same vehicle would make me look for a problem with said vehicle.

[cheb]

Are the people getting punctures running fancy tyres on alloy rims? I ask as I don't seem to get punctures on the van, I think the last was at least ten years ago. It's got boring tyres on steel rims.

Curiosity really, nothing more.

[Mussels]

Are the people getting punctures running fancy tyres on alloy rims? I ask as I don't seem to get punctures on the van, I think the last was at least ten years ago. It's got boring tyres on steel rims.

Curiosity really, nothing more.

It's a right pain, I get through roughly 2 tyres a year. They are always marked heavy duty 255/35/20, I haven't tried cheap ones but the brand seems to make little difference. I've also 4 buckled wheels, three the MOT guy pointed out plus the spare he didn't look at. Yes I managed to buckle the spare a couple of days after I smashed a fiull size wheel.
Every time I look at the flash motors in the lottery thread my first thought is "Not with those wheels".

[Felix]

Sod a space saver. I would be buying a spare wheel. Yet to fill my boot of a car in the 38 years of driving so it would fit.

[MyLittleStudPony]

FWIW I've used the spare wheel on my Transit van today.

I also used the (full size!!) spare on the VW Arteon I had last year too. Some sort of spare wheel can be very handy to have.


I had an LPG BMW years ago and the spare wheel was in the boot as the LPG tank was in the spare wheel well, and I found that a bit of a pain.

[Wossname]

I've never had a tyre blow out, I can't think of anyone I know anyone who has.

2 on the same vehicle would make me look for a problem with said vehicle.

She is my daughter and I love her dearly, but still… I’m afraid it’s largely a problem that camper vans (and caravans ftm) have. Tyres get old rather than wear out, especially back tyres. Then they get taken for a long run at 70, and pop. Also she grew up in a household where Mrs W’s favourite saying was “daddy fixit” and the kids have never forgotten it unfortunately, in their 40’s!). So it’s a variation of a “problem with the nut behind the wheel” really.

[Skub]

I've never had a tyre blow out, I can't think of anyone I know anyone who has.

2 on the same vehicle would make me look for a problem with said vehicle.

It was more common with old tubed tyres. Back in 1980 I had a front tyre blow out on a GS1000. Low speed,a heavy mate on the back and pure luck stopped me from crashing. I think it put the shits up me more than any actual prang I had.