Spare wheels
Most cars today don’t come with a spare wheel. So, what’s the alternative?
IT’S LATE ON a wet and windy evening and you’re driving home along an unlit country lane. You hear a thud and then the car starts to pull strongly to one side. You’ve hit a pothole and it’s punctured a tyre.
Any practically minded person would brace themselves and change the affected wheel for the spare. However, this could be the moment you discover that your car doesn’t actually have a spare wheel.
According to tyre maker Continental, drivers suffer a puncture on average every 44,000 miles or five years, so many people won’t know whether their car has a spare wheel or not.
Over the past decade, more and more car manufacturers have ditched conventional spare wheels for tyre repair kits. They cite two main reasons for this: repair kits take up less space and are lighter, thus aiding fuel economy.
But there’s a third reason: cost. A tyre repair kit costs around £20, whereas a space-saver spare wheel could cost £100. So, by providing repair kits as standard and charging extra for a spare wheel, car makers can also make a profit out of this practice.
We conducted a survey of 251 new car models from 31 brands to find out what they provide as standard to deal with flat tyres, and found that just 8% come with a full-size spare wheel. A space-saver is standard on 30%, while 55% have a tyre repair kit rather than any type of spare wheel. The rest are fitted with run-flat tyres.
WHAT IS A TYRE REPAIR KIT?
A repair kit consists of a can of sealant that can be sprayed into the tyre via the valve and a compressor that can be connected to a 12-volt socket in the car and used to reinflate the tyre. The car needs to be driven soon after the tyre has been filled with sealant so that the liquid can spread all around the inside.
The biggest benefit of these kits is that they will most likely enable you to continue your journey without the hassle of changing a wheel. Once the tyre has been reinflated, you can drive on it for around 300 miles, so, in theory, there’s plenty of time to get to a garage and have the tyre repaired or replaced.
The disadvantage is that the sealant won’t work for one in every five punctures, this being if the hole is more than 5mm in diameter or in the tyre’s sidewall. Also, the repaired tyre will deflate a day or so after the sealant has been used if it doesn’t plug the hole completely. And even in any case, it’s still only a temporary fix.
Sealant can also prevent the tyre from being properly repaired. This could push up the cost of resolving a puncture from less than £20 for a tyre repair and wheel balancing to more than £100 for a new tyre.
To avoid this expense, use only water-based sealant, because this can be rinsed out of the tyre. A growing number of car makers now provide this, including Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Seat, Suzuki, Volkswagen and Volvo.
SHOULD I GET A SPACESAVER SPARE INSTEAD?
A space-saver wheel is an option on just over half (52%) of the cars that come with a tyre repair kit as standard. The cheapest price for a space-saver is £30 on Kia’s Picanto city car, while the steep-ist is £275 on the Alfa Romeo Stelvio SUV.
Space-savers are lighter, narrower wheels that are designed for temporary use to get you to a repair centre. When new, spacesaver tyres have a tread depth of just 3mm and their rubber is not as durable as standard tyres’, so a car fitted with one musn’t be driven faster than 50mph. There’s no restriction on the distance that can be covered, though.
Although the damaged full-size wheel won’t fit in the space-saver’s well, it should still fit in the boot.
WHAT ARE RUN-FLAT TYRES?
These tyres have extra-stiff sidewalls that are designed to resist the effects of deflation, so you can carry on driving at reduced speed when you’ve suffered a puncture. While they eliminate the need to change a wheel or call out the breakdown services, they’re often criticised for being more expensive to buy and giving a firmer ride than regular tyres. For this reason, make sure you test drive a car fitted with run-flat tyres before you buy one.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER ALTERNATIVES?
Some tyre manufacturers have introduced self-sealing tyres. Continental, Michelin and Pirelli sell tyres filled with a natural rubberbased sealant that automatically seals most punctures that are 6mm or smaller. These are great for dealing with punctures in the tyre’s tread but don’t work for those in the sidewall.