On 08/01/2013 15:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/01/13 15:45, charles wrote:
In article , Muddymike
wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:





WTF is a spare wheel?



A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays
cars. Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in
front of your car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them
days. ;-)



So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no
mobile telephone signal?

Wait for someone to pass by. But seriously, how often have you had a
puncture in the last few years? In the 60s, I used to have them
regularly.
My current car - 11 years old - has only needed me to fit the spare
once
in 114,000 miles.

Only tow time sin the last ten years were a potho9le - only a mile from
home, drive it ion the flat. Wheel was destroyed anyway.

Then a 'Green' couple stuck a knife in the sidewall of the land rover.

Had to change the wheel and get a new one fitted.

That is essentially it.

few slow punctures - that's the pint - a tubeless tyre with a nail in it
doesn't go down instantly. It takes a knife or a pothole to do that.

Time to get it pumped up and take to the nearest tyre fitter.

There are plenty of potholes!

I have also been driving or a passenger in cars (with tubeless tyres)
when all of the following have happened: had a tyre wrecked by hitting a
dark hose off a tanker, with a nice metal end; driven over the remains
of an entire box of nails that had fallen off a truck (luckily
puncturing one rear tyre badly and missing the other three, plus the two
caravan tyres - especially as we were hurrying back for a ferry home);
had a blowout on the motorway; come back to the car miles from home at
two in the morning and found a flat tyre with a large bolt through it;
similarly with a screw at home when setting out for work. In all cases a
quick wheel change with no more than 15 minutes delay - at least half
would not be "fixable" with the modern foam emergency repair, causing
unnecessary delay, frustration and extra cost (missed ferry, late for
work, etc.)

The modern trend for no spare is very poor.

SteveW