A spare full-sized tire method

In my two years here, I keep seeing questions about how to get this done. I've seen some use the OEM spare tire parts, with a donut spare, and some at a great cost when buying new.

My goal was for cross-country trips where I don't want to have to wait a weekend for the correct sized hybrid tire, and where I won't necessarily have to limit myself to the recommended mileage max for those little spares.

Bought a used full-sized wheel off of ebay, then bought a new full-sized tire.

Bought stiff enough foam that I can load multiple 24-packs of canned drinks, etc. and not really notice the compression - but at the cost of it sitting a bit high when not loaded.



Can't recall if this is 5" or 6" foam.

A board across the front to prevent the foam from moving too much:





There are two threaded holes built into the cross-brace, so that's all I had to use, but for its purposes it is absolutely fine:



So preventing the jack, tire iron, etc. from becoming dangerous projectiles during a crash or rollover, I used velcro straps to secure those items to the wheel/tire. The whee/tire is, of course, bolted to the spare-tire threaded hole to keep it in place. This image should be rotated clockwise one quarter turn.



Without gear on it, the top can sit proud. This is never an issue, though, as I always have enough gear to compress the foam to about the tire height.

 

Not my experience with the 15" tire, OEM size, in the spare-tire hole. It's just too wide of a tire - meaning its width is the issue when laying down by increasing the height of the floor. The circumference is fine.

 

So that extra padding became a boon this weekend. Rained-out tent camping had me use the rear of the Prius as an RV bed on Saturday night. I left the car running, AC on "Auto" to have the car self-regulate the engine and HVAC. I used a one-inch sleeping pad on top of it all, and got a better sleep than I did out in the hot and humid air the night before.

 

I just realized I missed taking or uploading pictures of the tire/wheel securing method.