Spare tire on the roof?

Heavy, hard to get up there, not good on the roof, no good way to tie it down, sun damage are,just a few negatives.

Not looking for overall negatives or opinions of those that do not or have not done this. Please comment on actual experience.

You asked for "also pros and cons". I don't think you're going to hear much because I don't believe it's a common practice, for exactly the reasons stated. I've never seen one up there.

There are 2 in my RV resort. I dont like the way they are mounted.

Moved mine from the bumper to the roof. Tire and rim, class C 16". Pretty solid fiberglass roof. Got a piece of 12" square stainless steel plate, about 1/4" thick. Enough ss screws around perimeter to hold down, silicone in screw holes first. Had tire mounting bracket welded to plate first. After every thing screwed in place, laid 2 layers of heavy fiberglass cloth over everything. Will NEVER leak or shift. People comment about how to get it down if I need it. Gravity is your friend here. Getting it up the first time was not much of a problem, just slid it up on an inclined extension ladder. Only hard part is checking air pressure. Tire has a heavy latch secured plastic and metal cover over spare to protect from weather exposure.

tarnold wrote:
Moved mine from the bumper to the roof. Tire and rim, class C 16". Pretty solid fiberglass roof. Got a piece of 12" square stainless steel plate, about 1/4" thick. Enough ss screws around perimeter to hold down, silicone in screw holes first. Had tire mounting bracket welded to plate first. After every thing screwed in place, laid 2 layers of heavy fiberglass cloth over everything. Will NEVER leak or shift. People comment about how to get it down if I need it. Gravity is your friend here. Getting it up the first time was not much of a problem, just slid it up on an inclined extension ladder. Only hard part is checking air pressure.

Your method is a way I have thought about, but I wont have the rim, the two in my resort use brackets on the inside of the tire that are screwed into the roof. I like the idea of mounting like a sheet of metal first.

50K miles and it has not moved. It will get me out of a bind. This is from a old post so now 75K miles.

Ivylog wrote:
50K miles and it has not moved. It will get me out of a bind.

How is it mounted or secured?

"it is probably heavy to get up there! How do you secure it?" On a previous DP I put it around a vent in the center of the roof. Did not fasten it down and learned that you need to put a short piece of rubber hose under it so you do not get water down the vent... it rode that way for 30K miles and saved me several times. I was able to pull a unmounted 275/22.5 up the ladder using my 30 amp extension cord as a rope.

In the picture above you can see one end of the strap that holds the tire to the ladder... the other end is under the tire although the lip at the back is probably enough to hold it in place. I do carry the jack and the tools necessary to change a inside tire if necessary. Changing a outside tire is fairly easy as you do not have to take the rim off. If in the middle of NoWhere I'll change it myself... otherwise road sefrvice. At home I use my BobCat to put it on the roof. The tire is used but it does have more tread than what the picture shows. In a couple years I'll replace it with a newer used tire.

PS: I carry four fire extinguishers... three inside and a large foam one outside.

I carried a spare on the roof of my former RV (sold in 2006). It was securely tied into a corner of the roof railing, with the tie-down ropes replaced annually. Got it up there by hoisting with a rope or pulling the RV next to something tall that I could climb on and then pushing tire onto RV.

Was this a good idea? Probably not. At the time, I thought it was better than no spare, which was the other option. I never had to use this spare in 15 years of backroad driving, maybe 80K miles.

If you took physics and remember about vectors, you know that putting something heavy up high is not a good idea.