I put on run-flat tires

And if there is a demand for a spare, the companies will make it an option they can over charge for.

 

Small cars just don’t really have space for a spare, unless you want to try to mount it externally.

No spare, runflats are a no brainer, for me.

 

sorry Mendel,
i gotta disagree.
flats are just not that big a deal to most people. they dont happen that often.
and when they do happen, 99% of women call a tow truck or service.
and 85% of men do the same.
most owners couldnt operate a jack, or the lug wrench, or find the spare.
as long as manufacturers can save weight and money, they will continue to leave off the spare.
and put the extra cost/responsibility on the owner.
in my 30 yrs of driving i have never put a spare on.
i have had several flats, actually quite a few, but i have parked the car, called for emergency ride from family or now uber.
and removed wheel next day with proper jack and taken it to get repaired /replaced.
i have kept one old tire from every vehicle, when i get new tires put on. that old tire stays in garage and is for emergency.
just in case the flat tire on the car isnt repairable... that buys me a week or two to order new tire , while car is riding on old leftover tire.
then stop at my convenience to have new tire mounted...

 

I kinda agree with your view. Just like you, I've had very few flat tires that required spare tire in my experience. Several flat tires I had are slow leak type that I could just top off the air and drive to a shop for repair or replacement. I have had two flat tires on the road while driving, and ironically that happened on my AWD Sienna minivan with run-flat tires both times.

 

This alone would be a deal-breaker for me. 11 pounds is a lot of unsprung weight per corner. For equivalent weight on the vehicle (perhaps a little more), but unsprung, you can pick up a space saver spare from a junkyard and carry it behind the front passenger seat.

 

Since I drive on used tires/alloy wheels, no spare tire/wheel in new cars is a non-issue for me, already. I just put one of my used tire/wheels in the trunk, which cost as low as $17.

 

Lousy analogy. Once any kinks were worked out, it proved to be a superior technology, or at least was accompanied by enough other improvements to make them better and less prone to flats than the prior tubed tires. But they still needed to carry spares.

Removing the spare isn't a technology improvement.

Where I travel, universal removal of spare tires must be accompanied by some technology improvement: either much better run-flat tires than people have experienced, or much better mobile phone coverage, filling in most of the current mountain zone 'white spaces' on the coverage maps. Mobile coverage may already be good enough in flatland zones, but is far from that in the mountainous zones where many of us travel and play.

I can see where most young urban folks with short life experience bases could feel this way. But many of us older rural-leaning folks have memories of first-hand experiences that just won't be suppressed. We need to see more improvement before we can give up that layer of protection.

Either that is a serious exaggeration, or my sample of family and friends is vastly more independent and mechanically self-capable than average. The majority of males in my sample still swap their own. Even the women in my sample are at least as tire-change capable as the men in yours.

45 driving years here. (FWIW, I started in a place and time that didn't have the current common 16 year age minimum.) The value of time I have already saved by using spares, vs getting outside help and coming back to retrieve cars the next day, easily justifies my preference to continue carrying them.

 

Of the half dozen or so flats I have experienced if my life, only one truly needed a spare. The rest could have been, and some were, handled by s tire plug kit and a portable air compressor. The one that needed a spare happened in the early '80s.

 

Am I an outlier for having 4 flats between my '12 Prius and '14 Subaru (2 each)?

One was discovered at home (plug-able, though took it to a shop instead), one was found nearby and made it home (not plug-able, required replacement), one was over 500 miles from home (plug-able).

But the very most recent was a rapid tire destruction. A large bolt caused rapid deflation, it was a goner by the time I had a safe pulloff. Spare allowed us to get the 30-ish miles home, swap cars (most local tires shops closed Sundays), and still get to the bicycle event we were supporting. Not having a spare would have forced us to either abandon the event (leaving them shorthanded), or leave the car unattended in a place where it would have been towed and impounded before we could get back to deal with it (more than 24 hours).

Also within the past decade, on the previous Subaru, spouse suffered a blowout, very likely from underinflation (no TPMS then, not an issue now on newer car). A companion hiker swapped on the spare (since spurring spouse to learn how, which she can do herself now). They got home without assistance shortly after I arrived home from work, where I discovered another tire overheated from underinflation, leading me to suspect trailhead vandalism. One low tire is a leak, but two seems more like enemy action.

 

Some cars that don't come with spares don't have the option to add one because of limited or no trunk space and running two different size tires front and rear but they are rare. I chose to remove my runflats on my Plymouth Prowler and can't carry even one spare. Sometimes there is no really good choice in life.

 

Over 37 years of driving, and 8 cars that I was driving or in my care, I had to deal with maybe 5 flats. All were repairable.
In addition, there was the tire blow out when I was a kid, the inner side wall was gone, and flats with a couple of friends cars. If we had a plug kit and compressor with one of those, we might have avoided breaking off two lug bolts while changing to the spare.

Between TPMS and better made tires, the risk of a flats and non-repairable ones is lower. Avoiding those cheap tire brands you never heard of before might also help.

Most of those examples are niche models that aren't likely to be a daily driver. I can only think of the smart fortwo being one that would be driven regularly.

 

Would that make Prime (and most other PHEV?) niche models? My PRIME is definitely a daily driver which has no option to add spare, at least not neatly stored.

 

The Prime has the same size tire at all for corners. The fortwo, Prowler, Chevy SSR, and a few other performance cars have different sized tires front to rear. Even without lost space to size or aesthetics, they would likely need two spares, one for each axle. Then some had one way tires OEM. In the case of the Prowler and fortwo, if a spare was desired, it would take up all of the cargo space. I don't even know if a spare could fit in the Prowler's trunk.

As further a complication, brake size can become an issue with performance cars and temporary spares. The HHR SS had a spare, but if the flat was on the front, a rear wheel needed to be moved to the flat's spot, and the spare placed on rear, because it wouldn't fit on the front with the larger brake rotors.

The Prime has a spare tire well. It is just underneath the battery. Your options for carrying a spare are more, and the cost in space less, than niche performance cars and tiny city cars.

PHEVs are studies in compromise An ICE drive train, EV drive train, and large battery need a lot of space. Losing the spare also cuts weight to balance out the added weight of the added systems, so it is an easy decision. BEVs have the space for a spare, but manufacturers want to eek out as much efficiency as possible in order to get a long range.

 

Since this is a Prius discussion site, most of us are interested in MPG. Run flat tires significantly reduce efficiency due to the extra material in the sidewalls to make them stiff enough to temporarily "survive" loosing air pressure. This causes a significant reduction in MPG.

JeffD

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I wish people would stop bashing those who try runflats so they can feel free to share their experience with them here....

 

I must have missed the bashing in this thread. I do see differences of opinion.

 

Too many threads. I must have been confused. Most were not condescending...

 

No, you aren't. Between my wife & me, we had 4 flats. During the period of our flats tho, we had two housing construction projects surrounding our house & my wife passed through another construction site, that caused her to think she might get a flat..... which she did.

 

I had a Toyota pickup in the late 80's. I got a flat about every month, due to where I worked (industrial area). I just left the spare in the bed so I wouldn't have to winch it down from under the bed. I'll bet I had a half dozen plugs in some of the tires.

 

how are they working out for you? are you still using them? getting the mileage? can they be repaired if punctured?