I was looking at new VW Polos and Golfs and I noticed that they did not have spare wheels or even a jack. I think there was a kit for blowing some sealing foam into the tyre and a tyre inflator that would work from am cigarette lighter socket.
I have often had punctures so I would think it necessaryn to pay extra for at least a space saver wheel and jack etc.
Has anyone any experience of these sealing foam kits or had a vehicle without a spare wheel?
The sealing foam is not regarded as a permanent fix, just a "get you to the nearest tyre-repair garage". Always assuming one is open when you get a puncture. Almost all of mine have been noticed late at night and/or on a Sunday, when I am about to make a long journey.
Much better to have a spare wheel which is fully interchangeable as regards speed and distance as the four running wheels. The only concession is steel rather than alloy wheel.
Yes, the gunk was a complete waste of time when I needed it, vowed never to buy another car without at least a space-saver.
Yes. In the case of a badly damaged tyre, it's a case of ringing your breakdown company, and getting towed/transported to the nearest 'workshop'
It's shit. Mine comes with no spare or jack or wheel brace. Just runflats. Which cost more and don't give as good a ride though you can drive at 50mph for 50miles on them when flat.
Worse, if you get a puncture nobody will fix it because they don't know if you have driven for miles on it weakening it. So what would have been a repairable puncture for £20 or so becomes 2 new tyres on the axle which will be £440.
There isn't space for a space saver in mine as under the boot floor is all the AdBlue stuff.
Yup, complete shit.
The story I got was that otherwise repairable punctures bocome non repairable due to the gunk. Is that true or a scam?
On my previous (diesel) car, I used a foam sealer and it got me a further
30 miles home and then, the next day, 10 miles to a tyre dealer. I have't had a car with a spare wheel for more than 10 years.My current BEV doesn't have space for a spare wheel. Well, yes, I could just put it in the boot.
Depends on the gunk. Newer gunks are water soluble and easy to rinse out. Don’t expect tyre repair shops to be entirely honest though when they’d much rather sell you a new tyre.
Tim
Not necessarily. Some services use "universal" spare wheels to send you on your way to a tyre fitter. They collect it later when you've had the new tyre fitted.
When I went through a phase of getting punctures (usually repairable) every few months in my car which has a space-saver, and had to postpone one journey because the puncture happened late on a Sunday (*), I contemplated buying a full-size spare wheel/tyre and keeping it in the boot (sod the inconvenience) so I wouldn't be stranded.
Car designers seem to labour under the misapprehension that punctures a) "never" happen, and b) if they do, it's always during the day when you can get to a tyre garage.
(*) A 50-mile driving distance limit on a space-saver isn't a lot of good when you've got to do a journey of 200 miles.
Ideal for making sure your burst tire cant be repaired
wrong car
In addition to the speed and distance limitations, the directions on space-saver tyres usually state they should not be used whilst towing.
That might not be an issue for many people, but still.
I do have a full-sized spare, and accept the weight and boot space limitations[1] it imposes.
Most of my longer journeys are done whilst towing a caravan & only a full-sized tyre is suitable.
[1] The boot floor has two heights, but the lower one can only be used if there is a space-saver in the well below.
That is a rather fundamental but rarely voiced downside of EVs isn't it, less boot space.
Which is manifest bollocks. We were going out to a dinner and took the usual narrow lane to get to the main road. Someone comes the other way, so I pulled into the hedge and slight attempt at a passing place so the other klod could pass. Cue enormous bang. The land was steep up behind the hedge, with some metal edged steps coming down to the road. Of course at night and with Chummy's lights in my face, it was not possible to see that so the edge of the bottom step ripped the front nearside tire wall. Luckily 50 yards on I knocked up a chap to ask what the postcode was there so I could tell Greenflag, but he kindly offered to change the wheel for us.
We never did get to the dinner and have not taken that route since.
I've been a passenger three times and a driver once when we've needed to use the foam. It didn't work in any of the three cases.
Twice, the spare wheel allowed us to carry on.
Once (having no spare for the caravan), we were stranded in the middle of the Severn Bridge, with rising winds and the RAC refusing to send anyone onto the bridge. We were there for hours.
When they did come, they charged a fortune for coming out, as it was a toll road and they didn't cover them (this was back in the '70s).
The last was in a hire car in Ireland, after a funeral - stranded in the countryside, in the rain and it going dark. Help eventually turned up took the car and dropped us at our overnight accommodation in the middle of nowhere, leaving us with no food, no transport to get to a shop or take-away and a mad panic to try and get a taxi in the morning (they were all already booked for runs to Sunday mass), to get to the tyre place, so that we could get back to the airport in time for our flight.
Very stressful; we lost our chance of a last visit to the cemetery; it cost us a fortune for the recovery and the tyre; and we were hungry.
A spare would have allowed us to retain mobility, do the things we wanted, eat properly, avoid recovery costs and to get to a different tyre place that we knew would be half the price. There would have been little disruption and no stress.
That event caused me to buy a cradle and spare wheel for my own car.
Yes. These days it is generally a scam, as modern gunks are water soluble and can be washed out. Most tyre places happily scam you by telling you that it means that it can't be repaired.
At least you have the option of permanently carrying a space saver in the car and a full-sized spare for the car, in the caravan. Most cars don't even have a space for a space-saver.
I'm lucky, although my car (second-hand) came without a spare, it had fitting for a cradle (which I bought second-hand), under the car and I now have a full-sized, matching alloy - so I don't even have to change the wheel back after repair.
I've always paid extra for a spare wheel kit. Foam won't deal with bad punctures. If you live near a city with access to 24/7 breakdown services then you can probably manage without a spare. But if you live or travel in more remote areas e.g. The Lake District where there often isnt even a mobile signal you dont want to get a puncture at night on one of the more scenic routes !
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