What happens to the spare tire?

what the hell is an EX, excursion?

I dont know why you wouldn't use the spare... pop it on one of the 4 wheels, and take your best current tire and throw that in for a spare... it certainly would be a waste of a perfectly good tire... now the question would be can you find a tire to match the spare...

i know at least on rangers the spare tire is not a very good quality tire, and i wouldn't go searching for 3 mates to it...

original spare has never been on the road.

bother the spare. It would seem like a waste to not

and take your best current tire and throw that in for

question would be can you find a tire to match the

i wouldn't go searching for 3 mates to it...

Most of the time, the spare really is just a lifeboat of a tire. For emergency uses & meant to replaced at the earliest time possible.

If this is in fact a full size spare it should have been included in your tire rotation plan so all five tires are of the same age and mileage. If you have the luck that I have the tire pattern that is available won't match the spare tire (which could be one of those emergency donuts) and you'll probably need the set anyway.

Best of luck'

Bill

tires

new

of the 4

the

quality

Sorry, it's an Explorer.

The spare is exactly like the other four. It would have been better to have included it in the rotations. Oh, well ..

It will be interesting to see what the dealer has to say.

Thanks,

WLW

On my Dodge Durango, the spare was on a steel wheel, not aluminum like the others. It was also a distinctly different tire, and looked cheaper, even though the description printed on the tire seemed to be the same.

On many vehicles today they have "styled" wheels except for the spare so it makes it impossible to include the spare in the rotation unless you are willing to pay to mount and re-balance two tires every time you do a rotation. That extra cost will be more then just buying a new tire when the four are worn out.

The ideal way to "use" your spare tire, is to rotate it in with the other 4 tires every 5000 miles when you normally rotate them. Then you will have 5 equally worn out, equally old tires, instead of 4 old worn out and one old unused tire.

At this point, I would suggest you leave it as the spare, you haven't needed it yet, and buy 4 new tires.

Even if you bought identical tires, they would be relatively new, versus a 5-year old tire. I don't know if the spare is kept inside or under the truck. If it's been exposed to the weather underneath, it may not be in the best of condition to begin with.

I would keep it as a spare, but maybe have the tire shop check it to make certain it is in good condition. If you ever have to use it, treat it like a temporary spare and get it replaced as soon as possible.

Then you will have 5

haven't needed

new, versus

under the

not be in

check it to

possible.

That's a good point. Thanks. That's what I will do.

I wondered about the spare being under the car and exposed to five years of Florida heat.

WLW

You might only need to get one new tire now - read through this carefully, there is a logic, and when you 'get it' you'll get it.

It is very difficult to get tire shops to include the spare tire in the rotation pattern, you have to insist every time. It's more work for them to mount and dismount it from the brackets, and the tire busters always take the easy way out...

So go to the "Best Old Tire as Spare" logic. I would pick the tire that is most worn but still legal above the wear-bars and in good shape (not cupped or mis-worn tread or the sidewalls scuffed from banging into curbs a lot) and move that one to the spare.

If you have two tires that still have some good tread left, save yourself some money and put them on the rear - they wear slowly there, so should last a while. And tread depth isn't as important on the rear tires as long as they have some, in the rain/snow the front tires clean a path through the water or slush, and the rears go through that fairly dry strip a fraction of a second later. The 5 year old tire that was the spare should be fine to put on the road and get your tread wear out of it, if you inspect for dry-rot and ozone checking first. A few small cracks are normal.

And even if it will eventually fail from old age, it will invariably show evidence first if you are "in tune with the Zen of your car" and you keep an eye on it - the cracks will grow, it will go out of balance and get "lumpy", the sidewalls will get funny bulges or dents or bubbles that weren't there last week... If you see any of that, get thee to a tire shop, pronto.

Put the former spare on the front, they wear faster. Buy at least one new exact matching tire to go with the former spare, and put it on the opposite side front - you do NOT want to mix size or model tires on the same axle, they need to be fairly well matched or the handling suffers.

And on the drive axle (front or rear, depending on the car) if the tires aren't fairly well matched side to side in their rolling outer diameter (one new one worn, or different sizes) you can wear out the spider gears in the "rear end" long before their time - to the final drive, one wheel smaller is like driving around in circles all day, the gears are constantly spinning when they shouldn't be.

Front to rear exact match is not critical, even though the tire shop would love to sell you five new tires right now - Cha-Ching! The ONLY time a 4 tire match is critical is cars with Full Time 4WD - or you wear out the center differential gears from the size mis-match.

And the next time you wear out a set of tires, you trash the spare tire (now over 10 years old and dry-rot is a concern) buy 4 new tires or 2 new and put the best old ones on the rear, and put a good old tire from that batch on as the spare. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

(I'm going to save this for the next time it comes up. It will.)

-->--

My advise always has been, and continues to be, use 4 matched tires when at all possible. The spare is JUST a spare - treat it as such. Make sure it is still useable, but don't cheap out - buy 4 new tires. I'm still an advocate of never reverse mounting a tire. Once it has been a left tire - always a left tire. One a right, always a right. The tire "experts" say it's baoloney - but I've seen too many tires fail (belt and/or tread separation) when reverse mounted to discount it out of hand. This makes a five tire rotation extremely impractical.

Well i'm pretty sure nobody rotates the dog nut tire in do they...

the bigger problem with the "rotation" pattern is any halfton or fullsize SUV these days has the alloy type wheels rather than hubcaps & wheels... and who wants that black or steel colored wheel rotated in to the mix every 10,000kms

Don't listen to the dealer... when the hell have they given really good advice...

use the damn tire... you paid for it... why go pay $600 for a set when you can buy 3 for $450 etc...

So your spare was on a wheel the same as the 4 on the truck?? not a black steel one?

I agree on this, i didn't want to say anything because i figured someone would think i was crazy...

That was only a problem on first-generation steel radials like the Firestone 500, where they didn't get a good bond between the rubber liner layers and the steel tread and sidewall plies. They would take a directional "set" and would internally rip apart when reversed - and with the 500 if any moisture at all got inside they delaminated and came apart even without being reversed...

This was solved by Michelin very early on in the design phase of radial tires, and they sat around laughing as everyone else jumped on the steel radial tire bandwagon without doing their own homework and had to fix the problem again.

Nowadays you don't see that failure mode. And the only reason for directional tread pattern restrictions now is water dispersion.

-->--

After every snowstorm, I blast the bottom of the truck with a pressure washer & clean the spare too. After the snowmelt in the warmer spring months, I remove the spare & totally hose the underside down with soap & water. Otherwise, the road salt will do a big number to the exposed iron components underneath.

It is the direct UV rays from the sun you should be concerned about. The actual temperature has little effect on tire life.

Not true I've had Michelin X tires self destroy in a very spectacular fashion when reverse mounted. Tore the 7734 out of the rear fenders when they let go!!!

Today they GENERALLY do not fail spectacularly, but belt shift "wobble" is still a VERY common tire failure mode. I will still RECOMMEND, whenever possible, to not reverse mount a tire with any significant mileage on it.

Better safe than sorry at the price of today's "performance radials"

Direct UV is the primary culprit, but OZONE is what damages the rubber. Ultraviolet light accellerates it.