"NY" Wrote in message:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
NY wrote:
There's no substitute for a proper full-size spare that is fully
interchangeable with the running wheels and can be used as far and as
fast as the real tyres until you can take the punctured tyre to be
repaired.
In my car, it would take up most of the boot space. And it has different
sizes back and front.
I keep meaning to buy a cheap steel wheel and tyre to keep at home as a
spare, so at least I can start a journey from home if I have a puncture that
has only become apparent after the car has sat on the drive for a day or so.
Even if I still have to rely on the idiotic space-saver for a puncture that
develops while I'm out and about - and that has only happened to me once in
40 years. I noticed the tyre was flat when I returned to the car after
shopping in a supermarket and had to wait for the car next to me to go
before I could get sufficient access to remove and replace the wheel. As the
car park was very full, I got a lot of abuse for "blocking" a space for the
couple of minutes it took me to change the wheel.
I once had a spare wheel go missing! On my Peugeot 306, the spare was in a
wire cage below the boot floor, secured by a bolt that was only accessible
from inside (to avoid theft). I was on holiday and I set off once morning
from the cottage where I was staying. About a mile down the road I heard a
strange grating sound: it was the cage scraping on the tarmac. I went back
up the lane (typically about 10 cars and a tractor per hour) looking on the
road and in the ditches, but there was no sign of it. That required a detour
to the local town and a wait of about an hour while a wheel was located and
a tyre fitted to it. That cage was a really nuisance. The only time I've
ever called out the RAC for a puncture was when I was run off the road by an
oncoming car (I had priority) and the tyre wall got ripped by the kerb. When
I came to get the spare out, the thread of the bolt had seized to the nut on
the cage - and the stupid f*ckers at Peugeot had put a semi-cylindrical
notch in a totally round bolt head, rather than a wheelnut-sized hexagonal
head. You were supposed to use the flattened end of the wheelbrace as a
crude screwdriver in the semi-cylindrical notch. The thread had seized to
the point where I couldn't get any purchase on the "screwdriver" because the
"blade" kept pulling out of the notch. The idiots had even given it round
sides rather that flat vertical ones to make sure that the screwdriver would
climb out of the notch ;-) It took the RAC man about an hour, heating the
nut with a blowtorch (carefully shielding the tyre!) and applying a lot of
WD40, grease etc, before he could get it to shift. He was at the point of
contemplating using an angle grinder to grind a couple of flats on the round
head so he could grip it with a Mole grip.
I would've gone straight for the moles...
--
Jimk
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