Hey, how come my vehicle doesn’t have a spare tire?
Not all vehicles have a spare. Why? Well, the reasons vary
Dear Ask a Mechanic, On the way to visit family last weekend, we ran over some debris and ended up with a flat tire. We were rather surprised to discover that our Grand Caravan doesn’t actually have a spare tire. Instead, while looking for the jack tools, we found it has a compressor and a can of sealer. The tire was too damaged to hold air, so we ended up having to get towed to a Canadian Tire. The tow truck driver said he sees this fairly often. We just assumed spare tires were required equipment. When did that change? Feeling Deflated
I don’t know that I could point to a specific date at which not including a spare tire became a thing generally, but the trend toward the elimination of the spare tire has been in the making for many decades. As best as I can ascertain, the Grand Caravan itself appears to have first become available without a spare for 2013. It’s an odd omission for the kind of vehicle that’s typically used to transport adults, kids and stuff.
As you discovered, if the sealant injected into the tire with the compressor won’t do the trick, the only available option is being towed. Not particularly handy with the family on board.
For automakers, there are several reasons why not including a spare would be good. Space considerations are probably the most common reason. Many modern-era sports cars don’t have one. as there’s often precious little room to put it, especially if a token amount of luggage space is to be had.
There have been some creative solutions employed over the years to fit the proverbial 10-pound spare in a five-pound bag, including spares with collapsible side wall tires that expand to a normal compact size using a can of compressed air.
Chevrolet’s Corvette hasn’t come with a spare tire since the fifth generation “C5” model arrived for the 1997 model year, all but the C5 Z06 using run-flat tires instead; some fourth-gen ’Vettes came sans spare as early as 1994.
It’s not just a sports car thing; BMW transitioned nearly all of its models to spare-less starting in the late nineties, at least in part to gain trunk and cargo area space.
It can be a packaging necessity, too. All-wheel-drive Toyota Siennas (from 2005 to 2020) have no spare because their rear driveshaft passes through the space the frontdrive versions’ extra tire would reside in. Diesel-powered first generation Chevy Cruzes lost their spare to make room for the Diesel emission fluid (DEF) tank necessary to meet environmental regulations with that engine type.
I think we can both agree that space isn’t the reason there’s no spare in your Grand Caravan, particularly when the spot under the floor that it would otherwise occupy will be just an empty, unused void in your van.
Shedding the spare does have the potential to provide weight savings; that benefits all vehicles to some degree, improving performance and reducing fuel consumption.
Mass reduction would be of particular importance in performance models such as the Corvette, or small, lightweight cars, like the Mazda MX-5, a model that hasn’t come from the factory with a spare since its third generation made its debut for 2006.
Again, weight savings isn’t going to be the reason why your Grand Caravan has four, rather than five tires. Dodge wasn’t worried about lap times on the Nürburgring, an additional few hundredths of a second being knocked off the Grand’s quarter mile run, or a fractional improvement in fuel economy.
It’s going to be about cost. The tire, wheel, jack, tools and whatever storage mechanism is required (in Grand Caravans, a winch is used to stow/deploy and store the tire and its cover beneath the floor), all add expense.
Granted, the alternative flat tire solution supplied in those vans of a compressor and can of sealant goo also costs parent company Stellantis money, but I’m willing to bet it’s appreciably less in total than the conventional spare and its various accoutrements.
In the end, if it isn’t for some other obvious rationale, you can always count on the reason to be dollars and cents.