How much air to put in temp spare

Mine just keeps itself at 60 psi, because I'm terrible about remembering to check.

 

@JimboPalmer and @PaulDM got to it ahead of me. I was just going to say that my spare says right on it to inflate to 60 PSI. So that's what I do every 2-3 months.

 

Technically you should replace them every decade? I never have, and ours looks pristine. But yeah...

 

This is NOT a "usual" tire.
You already know the right answer.
Stop looking.

 

Bridgestone recommend they be tossed at 10 years. With a temporary, I'd be inclined to stick to that - as on the road, it's a compromised situation. That's why they have an absolute speed limit - 80km/hr (I think that's 50MPH). NEW!! At over 10 years, I'd be loathe to drive at that speed.

 

This is why my spare is a full-sized tire. It ain't the 1950's anymore. If I am able to fix the car, I need to be at at least 72 MPH to not get crushed / killed on the turnpike. Commuting speeds this morning, for everyone I saw for the first five miles, were at 86 to 91 MPH until the left-lane and middle-lane slow drivers were encountered.

 

If you have the luxury, maybe if the "spare" is going to be in place for an extended period, you're better off swapping a normal tire to the front (driving) wheel and put the "spare" on the back.

 

It is a TEMPORARY spare.
Designed to ONLY get you to the next exit.
But most people don't quite understand that.

 

My daughter for one. Drove for months with a (knackered) temp spare, on a front corner of a 4WD Pilot. Went to the States twice. And she had an extra thou from us. But always busy...

 

Could have been even busier......trying to convince the doctors to let her out of the hospital after a nasty wreck.
I guess that most of us are "blind" to something or another.

 

And how would you suggest I merge back onto the highway without being able to get to speed? Blinkers on, doing 55 MPH, on a Florida turnpike is asking to get oneself, or others, killed.

Again, this is why I have a full-sized spare (used wheel, new tire).

It strikes me that with ever-increasing average speeds, the car manufacturers need to be required to manufacture better spare tires. The little donut spares so many rely upon were fine for the 1980's. Technological improvements could create better spare tires for the same size and weight were the car and tire manufacturers tasked with the requirement.

 

Do NOT concur.

It's a risk assessment thing.
You're much more likely to injure yourself diddling around on the side of the road doing a two tire swap with marginal equipment, in a marginal setting (at BEST!) for a very marginal notional gain - especially if you stay inside the safe operating envelope for a 3200# car with a doughnut spare.

Best advise would be to replace the damaged tire....and proceed immediately to a tire repair facility or the barn...as appropriate.
RTFM

 

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. What I thought I was conveying was if you have the luxury (of time) and the Temp Spare was going to be in place for an extended period, it should be placed on the rear. I did not mean to imply you should do a double swap in emergency conditions on the side of the road. If you Google "donut spare tire front or rear," all the advice says to mount the donut spare on the rear.

 

OK, the question of replacing temp tire after 10 years seems to be settled. How about miles driven. The temp spare usually is rated only 50miles, 50mph. So, if I use the temp for 50 miles, do I need to replace it with a new temp?

 

This argument is grossly inflated, regardless of where you live.
IF you seriously believe that, just drive on the shoulder. That is why it is called "the break down lane".

 

The last time I had to use the donut spare, I used the nav to chart a route to the nearest town with a tire shop, using smaller roads rather than highways.

 

Google is many things, but principally, they are a data search engine.
"Google" something like vaccine safety and get back with me on whether or not you should use "Google" in place of a for-real doctor.

There is a difference between data, and knowledge.

Ok....
So rules of thumb are usually only rules for thumbs, but generally speaking, TEMPORARY spares are only rated for something like 70 miles of total use at 50 mph or less. If you live in a more (cough!!) "developed" part of the world or where they drive on the wrong side of the road then convert miles to clicks as necessary.
Yeah.
I know.
Lawyers make them put all those safety recommendations on those things, right?

BUT...
Let's face it.
Those tires are very small, very hard, and they have very little tread.
They're only intended to make your car mobile enough to get you to a place that sells (or repairs) REAL tires....or perhaps back home where you can use a SAFE vehicle to repair or replace your dismounted tire.
If you're worried about what corner of your car to mount one of those things on then you're sorta missing the point.

This is one of those amazingly simple things that turn otherwise nice, compassionate people into Darwin Award contestants....which would be bad enough if they were only endangering THEMSELVES.

We've all seen people bombing along in the left hand lane at 90-mph on a doughnut spare.
I see people smoking and using credit cards all the time too.
All this means that you cannot fix stupid, but you should not encourage it either.
If you're going to go to the trouble of playing musical tires with a doughnut spare for some very notional sense of added safety then somebody out there is going to get the idea that they can compete in the Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash with one on the left rear of a FRD car because Dr Google (PhD) says it "safer that way".

I may JUST owe OEMs like Toyota a genuine heartfelt apology, since NOT including a doughnut spare in some of their cars may in fact be safer than including one.

 

In practice, I’ve never replaced a temp spare; they see little use, invariably looked like new till the cars were traded or sold.

 

I think the manufacturers may be saying the materials deteriorate, and I'm not sure I'd know what that looks like.

I should perhaps think about a replacement for mine, 11 years old now.