2005 Forester with spare on

Yes you do need to worry about awd. And especially so that you have LSD in the back. No, I don't think the spare is bigger than the rest. It would help if you'd specify the sizes of all the tires you run including the spare.

50 miles (80 km) I think. The limit is more like 80 kph. Seriously, the doh-nut spare is just for limping home on your car. On any run of the mill one wheel drive car from Chevroyota you can probably drive indefinitely one a spare if you can stand it. Not so on a Subaru. Consider buying a firth wheel and buying tires 5 at a time (But then tire rotation would be a pain). I suggest to find your owners manual or get a replacement from ebay/subaru dealer.

That depends on where you're located. US and the rest of the world have different tire models. It also depends on your driving style. If you have time for reading go to tirerack.com and read all the retarded reviews posted by the mustang bogans. The tests are more useful but they compare only 3 tires at a time. They also have a TON of technical articles which are a must to read for anyone serious about researching their tire options.

I'll look them up but they're whatever was the standard size for this vehicle. 2005 has a full-size spare, my concern was that the spare hasn't been driven on and the others have, so they wear down. I'm sure it's not a lot but I thought there was some point where replacing one meant replacing them all, if one was unusable.

It turned out the hole was fixable, so I only drove a short distance in the city on the spare. Still have found how to disable the AWD in the Owner's Manual. :(

I used to rotate all 5 tires on my old Ford Explorer, but all the wheels were the same. With this Forester, I've got alloy rims and a steel spare.

Thanks for the pointer, I'll probably have to buy new tires sooner or later and will know where to look. I'm in Canada.

=aw

andrew [ snipped-for-privacy@wwwebbers.com]

Right. If you haven't replaced all 4 yet next time I'd put the spare in front since you have LSD only in the back.

If it's an automatic I think there is a fuse somewhere.

Since you're in Canada consider investing in two sets of tires. One for summer only and another for winter. I think there is a lot of very good winter rubber suitable to all tastes that appeared in the last 5 years for less than $250 a set. But you'd need to buy another set of rims of course. That's extra dough.

As far as summer rubber goes if you don't drive aggressively any garbage including manager's "special" $100/set would do. I'm sure a lot of Forester owners would love to tell you how they like their Tripletreds :^) If you want to have fun occasionally for about $250 US you can get good UHP summers or "all season"s. Consider that an investment into some essential wet weather safety equipment. Then, again, tirerack tests (as opposed to reviews) would be of help. If you want to kill some time by all means read some bogantalk also. You'd be amazed how retarded some of those writings are. Maybe THAT's why tirerack server is so slow these days?

Hope this helps. If you know how to grep thru the archives for this group you would probably find a ton (and then some) of tire threads.

Take care. And happy tire shopping.