No spare tire and a blow out in 2017 Prime

The priority order for me:

1. Proper tire maintenance and driving prevents tire damage.
2. In the event of a puncture, it's a slow leak that I catch long before it becomes a problem.
3. In the event of a sudden flat, I call my wife. While she is coming to get me, I remove the damaged tire and then have my wife take me and the tire to a repair shop.
4. If #3 doesn't work, call a friend or other family member and do the same thing.
   
5. If no one can help, use the plug kit.
6. If the plug kit can't help, use the goo kit.
7. If the goo kit fails, call a tow truck with my insurance's road-side assistance.

So, the tow truck is the last resort, not the best case.

 

Not gonna get drawn into this anymore.

 

Don't forget being adequately equipped to walk or hitchhike down the road to some place with phone service, in any weather. BTDT several times in my younger days (before cell phones) for non-tire failures, and I still frequently travel in places that still lack cell service.

 

uh AAA does not offer unlimited towing, at least not in California (there is a mileage limit.) I'm a 47 year AAA member.

 

I think a lot of the people who haven’t had catastrophic flats live in places that don’t have harsh winters. Around here, this time of year, we’re dodging potholes the size of watermelons for a few months every year. All it takes is not paying attention for a second to hit one and blow a tire, and the repair kit ain’t going to help in that case. These kinds of flats have happened to me a few times over the years. I was thinking about that last night, driving home late in my Prime through I-95 construction zones in the rain, when the potholes are full of water and hard to see. A tow from Toyota on Saturday night would mean my car would sit until Monday morning, and I’d have to get a ride home from there. I think I’ll look for a spare to keep in my hatch.

 

I live in Colorado! We're the worst place I've ever been for freeze/thaw cycles. It can be 60 one day and -10 the next. Last week it went from 55 to 10 in 15 minutes.

 

Ok, so are there a lot of big potholes around or do they fill them in as they appear? Around here they get big and can stay for weeks at a time, representing a real danger to tires. It’s terrifying to drive this time of year for us.

 

They tend to fill them in the spring. A commonly used expression is, "you could lose your car in that one".

 

If you have a doughnut spare, what is the best way to carry it in the car? I am thinking wrapping it in plastic or a thin blanket and placing it upright behind either the passenger or driver's seat, wedged in with a pillow or two to keep it from flopping around. Any better ideas?

 

Hopefully this Amazon link works: http://a.co/2D1K966

It's a wheel cover intended for parked/stored RV's. Works very well. Just measure your mini-spare to get the best fit.

 

I have not bought a car in years since, happily, my 2006 Prius lasted me until now. I had no idea that newer cars did not come with a spare, so I didn't even think to ask. I understand that blowouts rarely happen, but twice I came upon some construction debris in the road that I did not see because it was dark and damaged the tire beyond repair. It was nice to have that spare as it was late and I doubt I could have gotten a new tire. But, yeah, if I knew this car did not have a spare, I might have reconsidered.

 

Many cars are coming without spare tires now, especially rare in plug-ins. I used to say spare tire is non-existent in USA plug-ins, but there are so many new models, maybe a few have it now, not sure.

 

There's still a lot of new cars with spares, but yeah there's (sadly) a trend towards reduction of car models and/or some levels that nix the spare. More than slightly disconcerting, that in the US it's the upper 4th Gen Prius levels (and the Eco level) that lose the spare: levels 2 and 3 have a spare. In Canada, every 4th gen Prius has a spare, except the top level with extra technology package.

 

I can understand there is pressure on the manufacturers to save weight, as well as cost, but if they would at least leave a place to store a spare. They could then sell it as an option, or you could buy your own. I know people would complain about that, why should we have to pay for a spare when it used to be included, but I'll accept that over the current situation where you can't even buy one because you don't have a place to store it.

 

Honda sold auto transmission Fits without a spare for a while, but space was there, all ready to go, and the spare could be purchased as an option for around $250. The reason: to nudge them into a different weight category, or eke slightly more mpg. Which I can't recall, but it was just the auto-tran models, which were a bit heavier.

Seems a weazly tactic, my 2 cents.

 

I think many cars first started to have no spare tires not because they wanted save weight or cost but in many cases they had to eliminate spare tire because they did not have space. I never owned one but many of sports cars had no space under deck and opted for run-flat tires, I think. It was the same reason my Sienna minivan had no spare in 2005. Only AWD models were without spare, due to under deck storage issue with AWD mechanisms.

 

Also: one or two manufacturers "test the waters", find there's not much consumer resistance, and the flood gates open. I mean, if they were motivated, they would find the space, one way or another.

 

Yeah I'll bet they could have made space but just took the easy way out. Another weazly tactic I think

 

I guess, it's not always easy to go back to drawing board. I am very lucky that for my 30+ years of driving cars, I have not yet to encounter an occasion to use a spare tire. But out of all the cars I have owned, this was my favorite spare tire storage.

 

so if toyota saves $100 per car by not giving you a spare, do the math...
now how many millions of cars do they make?
instant profit of a few hundred million dollars ..
then they get to sell you a new alloy rim for $400 to replace the one you chewed up trying to get off the road safely ..