Full-Sized Spare Tire Fit in Cargo Spare Storage Well of 2017 Four?

A donut spare is not so great when you are far from home as it has limited speed and range, basically enabling you to limp to the next large town where hopefully they can fix your flat. If not you have to buy another tire, with some possible difficulty finding the same size and brand as your other tires. And if all of this is happening at night your options are even less. You could just keep pressing on with the donut but eventually that becomes dangerous. Even in good condition a donut affects handling and braking.

The best solution for long trips is the good old fashioned full size spare. Presumably you can buy a used wheel and tire in reasonable shape for this purpose for not too much money. Only drawback of course is the space that it takes up in back, probably you have to fold the rear seats down if you will also be carrying luggage or other large items.

Of course a donut is better than nothing, and if everything works out right it could be all you need.

 

I've come to grudging acceptance of the temp spare, as opposed to full-size spare. A full size spare has some advantages, but there's a lot of drawbacks too. First and foremost, it's a lot bulkier: whatever your situation, if you're trying to shoehorn in a spare tire, you're making more work for yourself going for full size.

Then, do you use the full-size in the rotation?, and is it on a utilitarian rim, or a matching alloy? And when re-tiring, do you swap it out too?

I like the temp spare. It WILL get you out of jamb, get you where you want to go. It'll also allow you to pull over sooner, get it on, vs being tempted to drive further on the flat, and total it. My last scenario:

Pulled into a parking lot, noticed one rear was flat (a snow tire, without tpms). Jacked it up with the scissor jack, put on the temp spare, drove home (secondary highway, 60 kmh limit, though they're fine to 80), took the tire in the house, plug-repaired it, aired it up with a hand-operated, floor-mount bicycle pump, reinstalled. That was over 3 years back.

A few more extras to consider taking along, both for simple swapping to spare, and/or plug repair:

1. Plug repair kit
2. Small square of plywood (say 6"x6", 3/4" thick preferably), to act as sub-base if you have to use the scissor jack on soft earth.
3. Pair of wheel chocks (check the manual: recommends to chock the wheel diagonally opposite the flat before jacking up)
4. A large plastic bag, the type tire shops wrap wheels in, to keep the hatch area clean.
5. heavy-duty, insulated, grippy gloves (necessity in winter, keep them in the upper glove box, lol)
6. Flashlight.
7. Pressure gauge.
8. Decent bicycle pump.

 

So it's all about accepting risk, right? Something we have to do every day, weighing safety, cost, convenience, risk, and that elusive thing called "odds" and then making a decision.

I like to use seat belts as my yardstick. Someone can say they have driven thirty years without seat belts and never had a problem. That is entirely possible, however it just takes that one incident in your lifetime. So we put on our seat belts every time we drive even though the odds of needing them on a particular trip are very low. Tires are not so obvious, but there could be that once in a lifetime incident where the condition of your tires makes a difference whether you avoid injury or even survive.

So in theory we should inspect and check our tire pressures every time we drive. But most people think checking tire pressures once a week or even once a month is doing pretty good. Okay I admit I fall into that camp, but that's because I accept the slight increase in risk of not checking my tire pressures every time I get in the car. It could be that mid-month (or mid-week) one of my tires loses pressure without me knowing it, and then on a rainy night someone pulls in front of me, with four good tires I could swerve and just miss them, but that one low pressure tire makes just the difference and a very bad accident occurs. But the odds of that happening are low, so I choose not to check my tire pressures every time I drive, and roll some of the risk into trusting that the TPMS will work correctly and timely enough to alert me if a tire loses pressure in between my scheduled checking.

Same with tread depth. A lot of people feel okay taking it down to the legal limit of 2/32" (that's why we still keep pennies in circulation!). However there is risk doing that and it's much safer to replace at 4/32". I am guilty of allowing one or two side grooves to drop below 4/32" as long as most of the grooves are 4/32". It's a cost/convenience/risk tradeoff that I accept.

Ideally you would have five full-size tires exactly matching, which you rotate. and carry the fifth one with you on long trips so that if you have to change a tire (or have the tow truck driver do it for you) you can continue your journey on that dark and stormy night with four identical, evenly worn tires.

However for only a slight increase in risk you can instead keep a "permanent spare", which can be an ugly duckling scuffed up used wheel of the same size, weight and type as the OEM's, and a slightly worn used tire with the same dimensions and speed rating as your other tires, even if it isn't the same brand or exact tread pattern. Not perfect but safer than a donut on a wet road.

But alas, we want high MPG, and have for years accepted that these aren't our father's cars and there isn't room for a full size spare, so we accept donuts. That's fine as long as we realize that if we are driving that donut in the rain we are at higher risk than if we were using a full sized spare. Which is why it's safer on a long drive to bring a full sized spare. But if that creates a convenience issue, I can understand the decision to accept a little more risk by not bringing a full size spare. Just be ready on a rainy night to maybe only drive the donut to the nearest hotel and wait until the roads dry out to continue.

And finally it's come to this - goop. Not even a donut, just goop. But ironically that could be safer, since you are using your good tire. You just happen to be ruining it and the TPMS by filling it with goop. But that's just money, what value do we put on safety? Not a black and white answer to that question. Each makes their own decision, and rolls the dice, and hope we don't roll snake eyes. But since the odds of rolling snake eyes are only 1 in 36 we will probably be okay.

 

Spot-on summary. I've never needed to go more than a few miles on a temp spare, that's worked well for me. I guess the best you can do, is consider your risk tolerance, then opt for a level that you're comfortable with. Another example:

We were getting travel insurance for my wife, they presented the deal, and it was around $65. I had to pipe up and ask what the deductable was, turned out to be zero. A few more questions, and we find out with a $300 deductable, the insurance cost goes down to $40. Which seemed a good sweet-spot. $300 expense is not onerous, and it's a real long shot (knock on wood) that you're going to have any problems. And, what you're really worried about is one of those massive hospital bills, the quarter-mill killers.

 

That was an excellent summary - just a suggestion to anyone using a "slightly worn used tire". It is important to check the age of the tyre (a tyre place can read it from the code if you can't work it out).

I've twice had a spare tyre in a 2nd hand car which looked brand new. In both cases I put them into the rotation pattern, only to discover they were the original tyres on the car - in one case it ruptured spectacularly when I took it on a (good) gravel road, the other wore exceptionally quickly and when I realised there was something odd, changed it immediately.

 

Temp spares too should be replaced due to age. But does anyone? And what would be the cutoff age? I recall seeing something, in some manual. Will try to find. Ten years??

 

I was told 8 years, but one tyre dealer near me states "most reputable tyre manufacturers advise against the use of tyres that are more than five to six years old, regardless of use".

I drove my mother-in-law's MAZDA 323 (Familia) on a trip once - she did about 2-3000 km/year, and I'd only ever driven it very short distances before. But on this trip, it rained and it felt like it wanted to go skating, stopped and checked tyre pressures and they were fine. When we got home, I took it to a tyre dealer who checked - they were something like 10 years old, probably originals. A set of new tyres transformed it.

 

Kinda off topic, but our OEM pilots were made in February 2009, over 8 years now. Swap to snows in fall, maybe that should be it.

They behave fine though, still feel planted in the rain.

 

From the 2016 Owner's Manual, fwiw:



And Tirerack has pulled together some opinions and edicts, various best-by dates:

Tire Tech Information - Tire Aging — Part #1

 

Hmmm.
I still have my original tires on my 2000 Tundra with less than 60K miles.

 

Yeah I would think 10 years is the limit. I'm saying that with an 06 Civic in the garage with a 12 year old temp spare.

That's different though...

 

Mine looked a bit like this - maybe not quite so bad, but almost - it was about 8yrs old, had been an un-rotated spare wheel. I put it into the rotation pattern, and less than 1000km later this happened:

 

This is the reason why the companies advise replacement after 6 years. The rubber is constantly degrading over time, even in storage. They leach volatiles continuously and the risk assessment phase of my military health and safety course included tyre storage facilities and proper ventilation of those was crucial.

Yes you might get away with longer usage, but do you want to risk your life, or even someone elses?

 

I gave up and admitted defeat. Wasn't worth all the grief to do it. My next vehicle will be a self driving small pick up truck with a cane and tire for a spare.

It is rare that a tire shreds. But it does happen.

 

The only thing that'll wake up Toyota is customers voting with their check books.

 

Sorry you had such an awful ordeal, but glad you got things resolved in the end. Thank you for the story and your observations on the Gen 4 three-wheeler.

Like insurance, a spare wheel is absolutely useless right up to the moment you need it, when it suddenly becomes really important.

 

Not sure I understand.

If your tire was flat, but such that you could drive 40 miles on it, why would you not have used the compressor supplied by Toyota to fill it up?

I am thinking even my 86 year old mother could have given that a go (except she would have been screwed since her Prius has the donut and not a compressor like your car).

One advantage with a compressor is that it can be used in difficult roadside conditions -- soft or narrow shoulder, for example -- with relative safely and speed.

Why didn't you use yours when you first discovered your tire was flat? Or at the very least at the gas station you pulled into that had the broken air compressor, before driving another 40 miles on just 3 properly inflated tires?

From what you describe this sounds like a scenario when your Toyota compressor (with the goop) would have been much better than having a spare -- if only you used it.

 

Why not remove or cut the foam under the cargo floor and put the spare where it belongs?

 

Wow, the whole time I was reading this I couldn't believe that more people didn't jump on and correct her. Her plan was to carry a full sized spare TIRE in the trunk(only sometimes, mostly in the garage) with NO WHEEL!!! A tire without a wheel is no spare, it is completely useless. Nobody can mount a modern tire to a wheel on the side of the road, it requires machinery!! And then it actually happened!

And then when you actually do get a flat tire you drive FOURTY miles on it without topping it up, even though your car came with an air compressor!!! Jeez, you could have just driven straight home and stopped every 5 minutes or so to add more air with the compressor you already have, instead of driving searching for a compressor. The tire could have likely been fixed with a 5$ patch. For someone who cares so much about the peace of mind of a spare tire, you really pretty much had the absolutely worst spare-tire plan possible.

You still had to call a tow truck, you still had to buy a brand new tire, etc. etc. etc. This proves that you did not really have a spare at all! I don't know why you thought carrying a tire would make any difference at all, it can't be mounted to a wheel on the side of the road, people here were telling you that, and if you just google it you would have seen it was a terrible idea. If your spare tire solution can't be utilized at the side of the road, then it is not a spare tire solution.