Toyota Auris, no spare wheel

I have just come home from having a puncture in the tyre of my Auris. I hit a pothole. The 'gunge' was absolutely useless, as the tyre was badly damag ed. It can and does happen. The reasdon I am on this site is that I am look ing for a 'get you home' wheel.

I really don't understand the comment regarding not carrying a sapar wheel in this day and age. I am living testament to the fact that tyres still pun cture.

The rationale is - as I discovered on pulling over to help a woman with a puncture - that very few people actually are capable of changing a wheel.

They call the AA etc.

Who will truck the car to a tyre repair place, or fit one on the spot or whatever.

e.g.

where they recommend you don't fit a spare wheel at all, as its too dangerous by and large etc etc...

Whenever I have a tyre changed, I usually slacken the nuts off a bit with a breaker bar, and retighten them to what I think is a more sensible level. Some of the fitters seem to get carried away, these days; and I bet that most people couldn't undo their tyre nuts with what is generally found in the average wheel change kit.

NB: I notice that the OP was responding to a very old thread.

Using a torque wrench set to the correct measurement of course rather than just guessing.

Depends. Usually there is some bit of tube you can fit over the wheelnut thingie. Or a roick you can bash it with

I've manually fitted stuff to 100+lb ft using nothing more than a 3 ft bar. Same goes for wheelnuts. Impact drivers still have to be held in someone's hand. There's a limit to the torque.

Of course many people don't understand just how tight wheel nuts need to be...

I use something of comparable length to the wrench in the toolkit, tightened almost as hard as I can, on the assumption that the manufacturer has supplied something adequate for the job :-)

With grease.

I think you've been lucky

I've had to do it 3 times in the last 5

tim

how does that work ay 10pm?

where do they get the spare from?

tim

Not really, it links to this

It fails to mention that if you squirt the "gunk" that's provided instead of a spare into the tyre, most tyre places wont repair the puncture.

I put a hollow metal desk leg in the boot of the missus's car. But I expect she'd just call the AA anyway. But if she is, for some reason, unable to call them, at least she'll have some chance.

So that's why I can't see the original

tim

Dunno, My guess is they have depots

actually they say

"don't fit it at the side of the road"

on two of the three occasions I have had a flat it was so slow that I didn't notice it until I tried to use the car the next day.

In both cases it was in a (different) hotel car park and quite unreasonable for anyone to say it was unsafe to change a wheel in that location, especially as justification for not supplying a spare in the first place

tim

Do be aware that the original message was posted in 2009.

The tyre outlet I use have always first used the air tool and then torqued the nuts using a manual torque wrench

I've always supplemented the tool kit for my car with an telescopic wheel socket

In 10 years I've had 2 punctures where I've had to fit a space saving spare wheel. Both times the puncture has been subsequently successfully repaired.

My daughters got a Hyundai and punctured a rear tyre on a kerb damaging the sidewall the puncture repair kit was totally useless for that. To top it a ll there was not even a jack or a wheel brace to remove the wheel so she ha d no option but to call out the AA.

Richard

What I look from in a spare wheel is one which is fully functional, even if it's plain steel rather than alloy.

The sort that you used to get on all cars until a couple of decades ago, which allowed to to complete your journey and then take the punctured tyre to be mended at a convenient time.

Nowadays if you *do* get a puncture, it's a "drop everything, change your plans" emergency because you have to get to a tyre repair place within 50 miles, and wait until they can manage to repair or replace your tyre - and hope that if they need to replace it, it's one that they keep in stock, otherwise you have to arrange overnight accommodation and hang around until it's been delivered.

I think virtually every time I've had a puncture it's been discovered late at night on a Sunday as I've been about to make a 250 mile journey back home - not a good time to find a garage open :-(

Temporary spare tyres ought to be banned and manufacturers ought to be compelled by law to find a way of fitting a full-size spare with no speed or distance limits.

Assuming that you are capable and confident of changing a wheel, and can actually release the spare wheel from its housing (*), then which would you prefer - to be able to change your own wheel and continue your journey after a few minutes, or wait an hour or so for the AA to arrive, maybe half an hour to arrive at the tyre repair depot, several hours for the tyre to be delivered there from a depot, and *then* a few minutes for the wheel to be changed?

Changing a wheel should ideally be a trivial inconvenience that delays you maybe 15 mins max, not a major disaster than delays you by many hours. Manufacturers tend to put design of car before convenience for the driver.

(*) I had a car with the space wheel slung in a wire basket below the floor of the boot. The bolt that releases that cage had a head that had a very wide flat indentation, like an oversized flat-blade screw, into which you fitted the flattened end of the wheelbrace, rather than a proper hexagonal nut the same size as the wheel nuts. The bolt was seized up and the wheelbrace couldn't get a proper purchase on the screw head, so I had to call out the RAC - simply to undo the bolt that released the wheel. Once he'd done that it was plain sailing. Mind you, it took him a *long* time to manage to get the bolt to turn because he too couldn't get any purchase on the bolt. He was on the point of getting an angle grinder out to grind out a couple of flats so he could turn it with a mole grip or an adjustable spanner. We both cursed the parentage of the designers at Peugeot :-)