This weekend, while on a gravel road 14 miles from nowhere, I got a flat tire. (Mind you, these were new tires I had just purchased with supposedly tougher sidewalls -- and the puncture was on the sidewall, about 2 cm from the tread.) Fortunately, I was with other folks who added security by driving out behind me on my "donut spare". I find all the rigamarole with deactivating AWD (by adding a fuse in the engine compartment, no less), and the fears of tearing out the differentials, to be quite a disincentive to ever taking the car on rough roads, as long as there is only that stupid skimpy donut spare.
I tried putting a full-sized tire in the donut wheel well, and it won't fit, by about 1/2 inch. Curse the moronic engineers who came up with this design -- I would gladly have paid an extra $200 to get a real spare, and any vehicle with the slightest whiff of off-road use should have a real spare.
So, I'm going ahead and getting a real spare. For the first uses, I'll simply throw it in back; but I'll want a better solution for trips.
Is there a simple system to put a spare on the roof rack of an Outback? I would just want to buy something simple; I don't want to spend hours fiddling around making something from scratch.
Also -- would anyone recommend a place to get a compatible rim online? I thought of just going down to the same place that sold me the tires with a rim, so I could get the exact same model tire mounted.