Is it possible that the car was originally supplied with a space saver - as most seem to be these days - and somebody thought it would be a good wheeze to peel off the 50 mph stickers and transfer them to the 'new' spare?
Have a look round the edges of the labels for any tell-tale signs this has happened.
Trouble with that line is that Adam's Octavia wasn?t bought new and isnt that new. Tho I spose the previous owner might have got the spare from someone with a new Octavia who didn?t like the 50mph limit and bought another spare that didn?t have the stickers.
No its not, its his own car that he bought over xmas.
I had that happen in Ireland. Flew to Belfast and drove to the West Coast and just South of the border for a funeral. After the funeral, everyone went for a meal in Bundoran and after that my wife and I decided to go back to visit the grave.
One the way to the cemetery, a car coming the other way swung well over, as there was a learner in front of us, but they swung too far, panicked, overcompensated and swung over onto my side of the road. In avoiding being hit, I gashed the tyre on the edge of the tarmac.
Being a brand-new hire car, it had no spare. We were stranded in the middle of nowhere for two and a half hours, while it went dark and I had to stand in the rain, on the road, as where we'd got the car out of the way, it wasn't visible and we didn't know when the recovery truck would arrive.
We were taken back to the house we were staying in - also in the middle of nowhere, so we were totally stranded. The tyre places were shut, so our car was left outside one overnight.
We got the car back at 11:30 am and had to leave within 15 minutes to get back to Belfast in time for our flight home.
So no visit to the cemetery, a long, wet wait, being stranded in the house with no food in, the recovery costs and a tyre replacement cost double what I could have got at a place that I knew from previous experience. And all because there was no spare.
Indeed. I have added one to my car (a Zafira B, which didn't have one or a carrier for one, yet had the space reserved in the floor-pan for a full sized one!)
SteveW
I had no punctures at all on my bicycle, despite going off road all the time (on road tyres) as a teenager. My sister had a puncture, so borrowed my bike for her paper round and got a puncture! Once I was driving, I drove for years without a puncture. When, for the first time, I replaced all four tyres at the same time, I got a bolt through one within a week.
SteveW
My previous car was a Focus mk2, bought at 11 months old. The garage had two and we decided on one, but asked them to swap the spare with the other car. We actually chose the skinny spare, as the well was shallow and to fit the full-sized spare, they put a rigid foam spacer under the carpet, so losing 2 or 3 inches of boot depth - and as we had a double trolley, plus a single buggy (the single in case we wanted to take one child each to different shops or whatever), we couldn't spare the space.
SteveW
Another possibility is a range of possible tyres for the car.
Some models within a range come with larger wheels and wider tyres (the rolling diameter is often quite different and presumably the speedo is calibrated appropriately).
Often those with the larger, wider tyres have a smaller spare that is the same size as those on lesser models in the range and so they would need to be speed limited.
It may be that they stick 50mph stickers on all the spares, as they don't know which model they will end up as spares for?
SteveW
Then they'd just supply it without a spare and make it an optional extra.
SteveW
It's pretty damned essential when you are on a long journey, at night, towing a trailer, heavily loaded and involving a ferry - the lower speed and limited distance permitted for a space-saver would prevent you getting to the ferry in the first place.
SteveW
And I don't recall saying it wasn't essential. What I said was that a
*full*-*size* spare is not essential.
The ones on the car are 1H, 1T and 2Vs. The spare is a T.
All are 195/65/15 and they are all are asymmetrical.
That's just reminded me to get a proper wheel brace. Gf spun her car on the A64 and popped the back tyre on the central reservation kerb[1]. The wheel brace snapped when I tried to use it so I had to call the AA.
[1] Two other cars did the same thing within the next 3 minutes. One of them ploughing right into the central reservation where 20 seconds earlier I had just removed the kids who had got out of the second car.
I bought one of those extending ones for my kit-car. They make it very easy to undo even very tight wheel-nuts. As I don't use the kit-car often, it actually resides in my daily use car, as it has a double ended socket and fits my trailer wheel-nuts. I just transfer it temporarily if I ma using the kit-car.
I've only had a spider type wheel brace snap, when the central weld gave way.
Good move on your part.
SteveW
I suspect that is was a diesel spillage to blame. The police just said it was speed to blame and were only interested in a breath test. Three cars doing about 40MPH do not suddenly leave the carriageway at the same spot in less than 5 minutes do they unless there is something wrong with the road?
I have the same. On querying it with the garage, they told me that they use the same spares on all cars in the range and it wouldn't be the same size for a higher spec car. Basically told me not to worry.
Jonathan
On 14/04/2019 14:28, Steve Walker wrote: <snip>
I'll second that - although in my case it's now more than ever a matter of "They make it possible to undo /most/ cars' wheel nuts..." :(
Diesel, ice or a large quantity of water is all that springs to mind.
We have a bridge taking a road over a railway near here. The bridge has been declared weak, but neither the council nor Network Rail will pay to repair/upgrade it and so it has had a 7.5T weight limit placed on it (rather silly as it has always provided the diversion route for buses when one of the two main roads are closed for roadworks and the last time it meant the local secondary schools having no buses to and from them!)
To "enforce" the limit, width restrictions were put on both sides. The first cold weather resulted in a whole series of crashes, as the width restrictions prevented the gritters getting through and vehicles coming over the steep bridge simply slid down the ice on the far side and straight into a garden wall where the road bends.
SteveW
That wouldn't apply for my Fabia, as I'm pretty sure no other model used the (quite wide, low profile) same size on a 16" wheel, but I do reckon they just whack the stickers on them all.
It has been suggested (by a bloke in the pub) that the wheel nuts are different for alloy and steel wheels.
My last two cars have/had alloys, but a steel spacesaver spare... the spare doesn't come with a different set of lug bolts
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