Why do we carry a spare tire around?
Hi Folks, THIS IS MENT TO BE A DISCUSSION. Since the beginning of cars and RV,s, we have always carried a spare tire. With a Roadtrek, none of us are able to change a tire, especially those of us w...
Forum Discussion
New vehicles are losing their spare tires. The ones I have seen come with a small air pump and a bottle of slime or something.
I have used a small air pump and a plug kit to fix more holes in tires than I have used the spare tire to move the vehicle if a tire is flat.
One flat was big enough to need several plugs, this is my most recently used spare tire incident. Took tire to walmart where a plug for a big rig type tire was used along with a patch and tire went on to go for lots of miles, was on a grand cherokee.
If you ever drive through the remains of an accident on the road you might pick up a lot of trash in your tires.
If you travel during or shortly after a tornado or other mother nature hissy fit, you might pick up trash in your tires.
During the recent snow/ice/sleet issues east tn had lots of folks called aaa. They never showed up because they kept running into people stuck in the ditch or other stuff. Took days to get caught up from what aaa members at work talked about.
Some of this stuff you can avoid. Some you can deal with.
As far as jacking a vehicle goes, I like to replace the stock jacks with a real bottle jack and I make sure using those tools in the vehicle I can remove and replace a tire. And if on a berm of the road or on a dirt road some scrap wood for supporting the jack might be a good idea.
Anyway, I will always carry a spare tire on a vehicle I am taking trips in because a flat at a bad time or in a bad area is not going to keep me in that area.
But I do find it easy to jack up vehicle and air up tire first and find leak and see if I can just plug it. Some won't like this idea, but it is often faster and easier than changing out to the spare tire.
One thing I do these days is buy a truck type tire rated easily for the job at hand. Something squared off and made to handle some off road sidewall abuse. Even if I don't off road, the tougher tire tends to not have as many problems. I had some bad luck with passenger car tires and now move to light truck tires almost instantly.
I have used a small air pump and a plug kit to fix more holes in tires than I have used the spare tire to move the vehicle if a tire is flat.
One flat was big enough to need several plugs, this is my most recently used spare tire incident. Took tire to walmart where a plug for a big rig type tire was used along with a patch and tire went on to go for lots of miles, was on a grand cherokee.
If you ever drive through the remains of an accident on the road you might pick up a lot of trash in your tires.
If you travel during or shortly after a tornado or other mother nature hissy fit, you might pick up trash in your tires.
During the recent snow/ice/sleet issues east tn had lots of folks called aaa. They never showed up because they kept running into people stuck in the ditch or other stuff. Took days to get caught up from what aaa members at work talked about.
Some of this stuff you can avoid. Some you can deal with.
As far as jacking a vehicle goes, I like to replace the stock jacks with a real bottle jack and I make sure using those tools in the vehicle I can remove and replace a tire. And if on a berm of the road or on a dirt road some scrap wood for supporting the jack might be a good idea.
Anyway, I will always carry a spare tire on a vehicle I am taking trips in because a flat at a bad time or in a bad area is not going to keep me in that area.
But I do find it easy to jack up vehicle and air up tire first and find leak and see if I can just plug it. Some won't like this idea, but it is often faster and easier than changing out to the spare tire.
One thing I do these days is buy a truck type tire rated easily for the job at hand. Something squared off and made to handle some off road sidewall abuse. Even if I don't off road, the tougher tire tends to not have as many problems. I had some bad luck with passenger car tires and now move to light truck tires almost instantly.
