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I'd much rather put on a real wheel and tyre than a space saver, but I'd much rather put on a space saver than rely on a "kit".
Just doesn't ring any of the right bells for me.
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I'd much rather put on a real wheel and tyre than a space saver, but I'd much rather put on a space saver than rely on a "kit".
Indeed - My nearly new Superb II came with a full size spare (fits in wheel well) with the same size tyres as the car (probably because it's just the poverty spec) but only with a steel wheel. For some reason it didn't come with the tweezers to remove the wheelnut caps - ebay sorted that. I think it was an option when new.
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I bought a couple of 2nd hand car books in Australia. One of them (The Dog and Lemon Guide) IIRC points out that in large areas of that country not having a functional full-size spare could quite concievably result in dying, but they now get pretty much the same globalised junk as everyone else .
Here's some quotes from Safe Outback Travel.(Absalom, 1992)
"I strongly suggest that you never use tubeless tyres, which are extremely dangerous in rough country, and unsafe even on good roads. If your car has them, you must get tubes fitted. Without tubes they are a bad risk, but with them they are good tyres to use in the bush."
"Earlier in the book I suggested that you always carry a full-length gaiter. This is a canvas, rubber-encased liner which fits all the way round inside the tyre. If a tyre blows out or fractures badly, you simply put the liner inside the tyre, replace the tube, and you're ready to go. Should the liner wear through at the point of its exposure, it is a simple matter to slide it around until a new part is above the damaged section of the tyre."
"You can cut a servicable gaiter from a damaged tyre or, alternatively, you can substitute a double thickness of tubing"
Extreme techniques for extreme conditions, and probably a bit old fashioned even in 1992, but interesting.
I havn't put tubes in radials for a very long time (I use tyre strings) but if I was driving much in rough conditions I'd certainly look into it again.
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Well I'll stick my head above the parapet. I made a conscious decision to buy a car without a spare. Nearly new Astra from main dealer bought sight unseen but they sourced the colour and spec. I wanted.
The Astra doesn't have a well for a spare but if you have one it's fixed to the boot floor and has a large piece of polystyrene surrounding it to make up a flat false floor, Trouble is, it robs the boot space of around 5 inches, making a (for me) useful size boot, into one that was too small. So it was a conscious decision to go without based on not having had a proper puncture in over 30 years, doing a low mileage, not often venturing into the wilds, being retired (so no great time pressure) and breaking the habit of a lifetime - buying breakdown cover (once the free cover expires).
I really like the rest of the car and see why the designers omitted the spare. The Astra bodyshell is quite light so helping it achieve low or zero tax (mine's pre increased rates) and respectable performance/economy from 999cc.
GB and others. Please don't infer that I, along with every other buyer of spare free cars, am an idiot because I only have a bottle of gunk in the boot. I made a choice just as you are able to make a choice. Mine MAY, one day, prove to be an unwise one, but it's one I made with my eyes open.
And the small turbo petrol engine may be another but again, research didn't flag up any issues with the GM unit.
Edited by Chris M on 03/01/2018 at 05:38
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I usually travel without a spare too, though I have one. Most of my journeys are local and recreational, I usually have a bicycle in the back, I carry tyre strings and a pump, and I could usually get the GF to run the spare out to wherever I'd abandoned the car. Longer journeys, particularly in the mountains, I carry the spare.
Part of my reasoning, is that, apart from parking restrictions, I wouldn't be concerned about leaving a car anywhere in Taiwan. Sadly, IIRC there are quite a few places in the UK where it'd be likely to get torched.
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The Astra doesn't have a well for a spare but if you have one it's fixed to the boot floor and has a large piece of polystyrene surrounding it to make up a flat false floor, Trouble is, it robs the boot space of around 5 inches, making a (for me) useful size boot, into one that was too small.
As I said above that is the (only) reason I have removed the Astra from my short list. Quite possibly the nicest car we have looked at so far. The 1.4 petrol turbo would have suited us perfectly. And broker prices are low compared to the competition.
Stupidity at Vauxhall is alive and well.
Even our old Micra had a spacesaver in a well that robbed no boot space. I would wager that the boot on that was a match for the Astra with a spare and raised boot floor.
Wife has gone to MIL's today. Although she would be unable to change a wheel herself a call to the RAC would have her mobile (hopefully) in a short time using the temp (not a space saver) spare in the well in the boot. And its only a "city" car and not a big one.
Having to wait round while the patrol goes off to get a tyre fixed or replaced is just plain daft when a spare of some description gets you mobile.
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GB and others. Please don't infer that I, along with every other buyer of spare free cars, am an idiot because I only have a bottle of gunk in the boot. I made a choice just as you are able to make a choice. Mine MAY, one day, prove to be an unwise one, but it's one I made with my eyes open.
Far from it, deliberately buying a car without a spare is absolutely fine because you knew what you were doing, the thread was more aimed at people who don't give the spare a thought during the buying process, and others who don't realise till the last second and get their pants pulled down for a spare and jack from the parts desk, or even worse when dick turpin has his way with them on a Saturday night when they have to buy a tyre via emergency callout to get home because they didn't realise no spare.
My own case, i start work at 4am most mornings including weekends when i'm on shift, being late or failing to attend is an absolute no no (for me personally), you don't have that issue any more now retired and jolly good luck to you.
As an aside, SWMBO Outback's summer set are Nokian Z G2, which are proving to be quite prone to punctures on her car, shan't be having any more of those, and i just had a set of Yokohama G015's fitted to my old Landcruiser, partly through recommendation via the tyre lads who sort my lorry tyres out (no sale involved for them), who mentioned a local farmer has been trialling a set thye supplied on his Disco 4, who has come away from Generals due to too many punctures.
Has anyone else found a make or model of tyre they used punctured more often?
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Has anyone else found a make or model of tyre they used punctured more often?
My old Vredestein Quadrac 3's got one puncture in a rear tyre and a slow one in the front that I put up with until I replaced them. Made me realise that having an 'uncommon' tyre is inconvenient because the rear tyre could not be repaired and I had to order one specially where the tyre fitter would have the more common tyres in stock.
The punctures were more likely to be down to luck. I had the same tyre on another car for about a year with no trouble before I sold it. Someone on a tyre review said that his Goodyear Efficient Grips were very puncture resistant but he didn't say what he was comparing them with. I certainly haven't had any trouble with mine, and it's a beautifully quiet tyre as well. The test will be whether they remain quiet as they get older.
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>>"I strongly suggest that you never use tubeless tyres, which are extremely dangerous in rough country, and unsafe even on good roads. If your car has them, you must get tubes fitted. Without tubes they are a bad risk, but with them they are good tyres to use in the bush."
I thought it was unwise to fit tubes in tubeless tyres because the tube could rub against the inside of the tyre and hole.
I did fit tubes in tubeless tyres for competition use (trials) and used pressures down to around 10PSI. Tubes were fitted to deter the tyre from rolling off the rim. I did suffer punctures from the tyre and tube rubbing against each other. I don't know if this would still happen at normal pressures.
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>>"I strongly suggest that you never use tubeless tyres, which are extremely dangerous in rough country, and unsafe even on good roads. If your car has them, you must get tubes fitted. Without tubes they are a bad risk, but with them they are good tyres to use in the bush."
That is one of the most outrageous and stupid pieces of advice I have ever read.
If you get a puncture in a tubless tyre it is generally a slow deflation that gives the driver some warning something is amiss and time to pull to a position of safety. Get a puncture in a tubed tyre and its likely to be a pretty instant deflation since the air escapes around the loose fitting valve. Guess what happens then.
Tubes were possbly fine when cars struggled to reach 50 mph, in todays cars they are not worth the risk.
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>>"I strongly suggest that you never use tubeless tyres, which are extremely dangerous in rough country, and unsafe even on good roads. If your car has them, you must get tubes fitted. Without tubes they are a bad risk, but with them they are good tyres to use in the bush."
That is one of the most outrageous and stupid pieces of advice I have ever read.
If you get a puncture in a tubless tyre it is generally a slow deflation that gives the driver some warning something is amiss and time to pull to a position of safety. Get a puncture in a tubed tyre and its likely to be a pretty instant deflation since the air escapes around the loose fitting valve. Guess what happens then.
Tubes were possbly fine when cars struggled to reach 50 mph, in todays cars they are not worth the risk.
Avon calling...
www.avonmotorsport.com/resource-centre/tube-fitment
Now I'd be the last to suggest you should always believe or follow manufacturers recommendations. Some of them are probably self-serving nonsense, but if fitting tubes was as dangerous as you suggest, I'd think it'd be in their interest to discourage it strongly, which they don't appear to be doing here.
Or here..
www.voc.uk.com/net/docs/2.3/2.3-443-18.pdf
That's from the Vincent Owners Club though, and the forces on a motorcycle tyre are admittedly quite different from those on a car
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Avon calling...
www.avonmotorsport.com/resource-centre/tube-fitment
Now I'd be the last to suggest you should always believe or follow manufacturers recommendations. Some of them are probably self-serving nonsense, but if fitting tubes was as dangerous as you suggest, I'd think it'd be in their interest to discourage it strongly, which they don't appear to be doing here.
That is specific advice fo 2 situations that require tubes.
"Tubeless tyres fitted to appropriate rims and operated correctly do not need inner tubes; however, there are some applications where users may choose to install a tube, such as with a spoked rim or when using a tube type tyre."
Why let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Edited by thunderbird on 06/01/2018 at 10:02
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Avon calling...
www.avonmotorsport.com/resource-centre/tube-fitment
Now I'd be the last to suggest you should always believe or follow manufacturers recommendations. Some of them are probably self-serving nonsense, but if fitting tubes was as dangerous as you suggest, I'd think it'd be in their interest to discourage it strongly, which they don't appear to be doing here.
That is specific advice fo 2 situations that require tubes.
"Tubeless tyres fitted to appropriate rims and operated correctly do not need inner tubes; however, there are some applications where users may choose to install a tube, such as with a spoked rim or when using a tube type tyre."
Why let the facts get in the way of a good story.
"such as" implies that those are specific examples. i.e. including, but not limited to...Also "choose" implies that there is, in some situations, like, a choice. There is no choice in those two specific examples, which, as you yourself point out, require tubes.
If Avon felt tubes in tubeless tyres were dangerous, I'd expect them to put a strongly worded warning here.
"Tubeless tyres....do not need inner tubes" is not a strongly worded warning.
It is not a warning at all
Words have meaning, but why let that get in the way of what you want them to mean?
Edited by edlithgow on 06/01/2018 at 13:20
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If Avon felt tubes in tubeless tyres were dangerous, I'd expect them to put a strongly worded warning here.
"Tubeless tyres....do not need inner tubes" is not a strongly worded warning.
It is not a warning at all
Words have meaning, but why let that get in the way of what you want them to mean?
The examples quoted are both instances where a tube must be used - with a tubed tyre or a spoked (i.e. unsuitable for tubeless) rim. On the other hand, it does NOT say "don't use a tube in a tubeless tyre" - the context clearly implies that the tyre itself will be a tubeless one.
So my interpretation of that is "you can use a tube in these tubeless tyres if you have to - otherwise don't".
As I think I mentioned elsewhere, I have done it myself (there are a load of Land Rover wheels in circulation [ho h] that are not 'tubeless').
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I thought it was unwise to fit tubes in tubeless tyres because the tube could rub against the inside of the tyre and hole.
I did fit tubes in tubeless tyres for competition use (trials) and used pressures down to around 10PSI. Tubes were fitted to deter the tyre from rolling off the rim. I did suffer punctures from the tyre and tube rubbing against each other. I don't know if this would still happen at normal pressures.
The Morris 1100 I drove in Canada 50 years ago came from a guy who had used it for rallying (FWD was very new then). It had tubed tyres, presumably for similar reasons to those quoted in Oz. I think the discussion about chafing was also live, but the arrangement is the same as with bike tyres, which were always tubed (obviously). I think the tubes were French-chalked to limit the chafing - and to prevent the tube getting pinched during fitting.
Edited by Andrew-T on 03/01/2018 at 10:11
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did fit tubes in tubeless tyres for competition use (trials) and used pressures down to around 10PSI. Tubes were fitted to deter the tyre from rolling off the rim. I did suffer punctures from the tyre and tube rubbing against each other. I don't know if this would still happen at normal pressures.
When I had a Land Rover I found myself at one point with a set of non-tubeless rims and four tubeless tyres. No option but to fit tubes. The fitter (Acorn Tyres, Aylesbury) was more knowledgeable than I, and smoothed all the lumps and bumps off the inside of the tyres before mounting. He did warn me that I might still get punctures, but I didn't.
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When my wife bought her ex-demo car there was only the gloop in the boot, also the boot cover was missing. On mentioning this to the salesman he pulled the gloop and assciated bits out of the boot, went to another car on the forecourt and put a space-saver and jack in her car and fitted a boot cover.
He said that people may have noticed the missing cover but most would not even know or care about the spare.
We think there must have been a car in their stock with lots of missing or odd accessories. Maybe this is where her original boot cover had gone!
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did fit tubes in tubeless tyres for competition use (trials) and used pressures down to around 10PSI. Tubes were fitted to deter the tyre from rolling off the rim. I did suffer punctures from the tyre and tube rubbing against each other. I don't know if this would still happen at normal pressures.
When I had a Land Rover I found myself at one point with a set of non-tubeless rims and four tubeless tyres. No option but to fit tubes. The fitter (Acorn Tyres, Aylesbury) was more knowledgeable than I, and smoothed all the lumps and bumps off the inside of the tyres before mounting. He did warn me that I might still get punctures, but I didn't.
I had a garage eventually fit a tube when they couldn't get a replacement (remould) tyre to seal to a steel rim.
I'd guess they perhaps wouldn't do so today, since its become a very unfashionable idea, but I have heard that drivers of classic cars are often forced to and don't seem to crash in large numbers.
I've had it done with two other tyres, so three (all remoulds) in total that I know of, one on an 1800 Marina and two on a Renault 5. Not much of a sample but I didn't have any problem with them.
I don't have a strong opinion on this, but the source I quoted is recommending it mostly for rough road conditions where speeds are likely to be fairly low but punctures very frequent. Since (according to the blurb) he'd been driving in the outback for over forty years, I think its likely he'd survived quite a few punctures of his death donuts.
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I was delighted to have a car (Octavia) with a full size spare this morning. Going to work at 6am and -5C got a front nearside puncture. I've had the car 5 years and never changed a wheel at the roadside on it.
S0 - hHandbrake on, front offside wheel chocked with a boulder. I was pleasantly suprised that the garage who fitted my tyres 25000 miles ago used the correct torque on the wheel nuts. They loosened with no drama at all. Wheels swapped and back on the road in 10 minutes.
Given the other options of either waiting 40 minutes upwards for a breakdown truck or atttempting a fix with a tube of gloop there is no contest.
The puncture turned out to be a hole right on the edge of the tread which had around 4mm left. So I'm not getting it repaired. It's maybe 80% worn if I swap at 3mm. So I've just ordered two new front tyres- an exact match for the current ones. Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons 195/65/R15 91V. At £150 for the pair I'm maybe losing £30 worth of use replacing a 4mm rather than 3mm tread. Worth it to get a new matched pair on the front.
As for cars without at least a spacesaver spare? I wouldn't buy one.
Edited by IRC on 08/01/2018 at 19:27
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The puncture turned out to be a hole right on the edge of the tread which had around 4mm left. So I'm not getting it repaired. It's maybe 80% worn if I swap at 3mm. So I've just ordered two new front tyres- an exact match for the current ones. Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons 195/65/R15 91V. At £150 for the pair I'm maybe losing £30 worth of use replacing a 4mm rather than 3mm tread. Worth it to get a new matched pair on the front.
As for cars without at least a spacesaver spare? I wouldn't buy one.
Hi IRC
I wouldn't get a tyre repaired for 1mm of usable tread either.
I currently run 2 sets of wheels. My winter set fitted with Continental WinterContact TS800 tyres, which I'm most impressed with.
When I change car, I'm thinking of just running one set of All Seasons tyres throughout the year. Can I ask how you rate the Goodyear Vector 4 seasons?
Thanks
Edited by FiestaOwner on 08/01/2018 at 22:01
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Hi Fiesta Owner
I think the Goodywears are the best all round tyres I've driven on including my personal cars and 30 years driving various work car 24/7 in all weathers.
There is a theoretical loss of unlitmate summer performance however as I'm not exploring the limits of grip in the summer I don't miss it. The rest of the year the Goodyears are better in the wet, as good in the dry, and compared to my last Bridgestone Turanazas far quieter.
In fact for me they transformed the car for noise. Tyres noise was intrusive at most speeds on the Bridgestones to the extent I had tried extra mats and carpets in the boot to damp it. On Goodyears it is no longer an issue. Of course if changing from quiet tyres this may not matter to others.
AS for winter performance - I drove my car (FWD) on fresh snowy covered road to work for one nightshift. THe drove my works Octavia Scout 4WD on summer tyres. My car was clearly better steering and braking. Acceleration was the only place the Scout was close.
I reckon they cost around £10 a corner more in my size and I'll get 30-35k miles from the fronts so cost isn't an issue. I'll never fit summer tyres again.
And as well as my opinion Autoexpress rate them highly. THe only possibly better tyres would be the CrossClimate which has a more summer bias. You wouldn't go wrong with either.
www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/92868/good...w
Edited by IRC on 09/01/2018 at 06:14
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Hi Fiesta Owner
I think the Goodywears are the best all round tyres I've driven on including my personal cars and 30 years driving various work car 24/7 in all weathers.
There is a theoretical loss of unlitmate summer performance however as I'm not exploring the limits of grip in the summer I don't miss it. The rest of the year the Goodyears are better in the wet, as good in the dry, and compared to my last Bridgestone Turanazas far quieter.
In fact for me they transformed the car for noise. Tyres noise was intrusive at most speeds on the Bridgestones to the extent I had tried extra mats and carpets in the boot to damp it. On Goodyears it is no longer an issue. Of course if changing from quiet tyres this may not matter to others.
AS for winter performance - I drove my car (FWD) on fresh snowy covered road to work for one nightshift. THe drove my works Octavia Scout 4WD on summer tyres. My car was clearly better steering and braking. Acceleration was the only place the Scout was close.
I reckon they cost around £10 a corner more in my size and I'll get 30-35k miles from the fronts so cost isn't an issue. I'll never fit summer tyres again.
And as well as my opinion Autoexpress rate them highly. THe only possibly better tyres would be the CrossClimate which has a more summer bias. You wouldn't go wrong with either.
www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/92868/good...w
Thanks for your reply IRC.
Think I'd prefer the Goodyear Vector 4 seasons to the CrossClimate. There's not much in it, but the tests I've looked at show the Goodyear performs better in snow than the CrossClimate.
I'd rather sacrifice a touch of summer grip to gain it in the winter. In any case, I don't drive at the limits of my tyres (well not in summer anyway).
I do run Goodyear Vector Cargo All Seasons tyres on my works Transit van. It certainly drives a lot better on snow than previous Transits I've had on Summer Tyres. I'd have to say that the Goodyear Vector Cargo All Seasons tyres have no down side. I've never felt that they perform worse in Summer than standard tyres. They aren't any noisier. The MPG isn't noticeably worse than standard tyres either.
Thanks for confirming that your experiences with the Goodyear Vector 4 seasons is similar to mine with the van equivalent tyre. Think it's made my mind up that I'll go with them, when I change my car.
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There is a rarely-mentioned extra cost element to this trend away from full size spares. With a "space-saver" tyre having a totally different size, it can never serve as a permanent replacement to a punctured tyre as it would have done years ago, and nor can a standard road wheel+tyre be relegated to spare. Thus, when the driver of an afflicted car gets to the fitter's s/he will have to buy TWO new tyres, unless the puncture happened to befall a nearly-new tyre. (Murphy's law precludes this in most cases!)
The two new tyres replace the punctured tyre and its perfectly safe but partially worn "twin" from the same axle, which cannot share an axle with a newer tyre; nor can it be repurposed as a spare. All part of a conspiracy to force us to buy more new tyres? (Drivers of 4wd vehicles are, as before, blighted with the need to maintain four uniform tyres.)
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I was delighted to have a car (Octavia) with a full size spare this morning.
Be very careful with Skoda "full size spares" because in all probability its not. My Superb came the the option of a "space saver" or "temporary spare". Same price, both fitted in spare wheel well so I wnet with what I belived was a full size tyre on a steel rim thus the "temporary" bit.
Wrong. The tyres on the car are 215 55 17 and the tyre on the spare is 205 55 16. Its 33 mm smaller in diameter, can only be fitted to the rear like a space saver and is limited to 50 mph despite being a Conti Sport V rated tyre.
The poverty model Superb is fitted with 215 60 16 tyres which are the same diameter within a couple of mm of my 17's. That tyre would easilly fit in the wheel well and cost no more than the 205 55 16 so I have no idea why Skoda don't fit one. OK, I would still be limited to 50mph (different sized wheel/tyre on one axle) but at least the car would be level.
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AFAIK, on the Octavia vRS the "full-size" spare is the wrong size but it's the right size for the other models.
My son bought a 2016 Octavia Estate SE-L which came with a can of gunk and a compressor, but I was able to source online a genuine Skoda spare wheel kit (it needs a jack and securing nut as well) and the tyre is identical to those fitted on the car - it's a steel wheel but that's permitted.
By removing the foam storage, the full-size spare fits neatly and still allows the lowered boot floor to operate - the foam though is large for storage!
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There is a rarely-mentioned extra cost element to this trend away from full size spares. With a "space-saver" tyre having a totally different size, it can never serve as a permanent replacement to a punctured tyre as it would have done years ago, and nor can a standard road wheel+tyre be relegated to spare. Thus, when the driver of an afflicted car gets to the fitter's s/he will have to buy TWO new tyres, unless the puncture happened to befall a nearly-new tyre. (Murphy's law precludes this in most cases!)
The two new tyres replace the punctured tyre and its perfectly safe but partially worn "twin" from the same axle, which cannot share an axle with a newer tyre; nor can it be repurposed as a spare. All part of a conspiracy to force us to buy more new tyres? (Drivers of 4wd vehicles are, as before, blighted with the need to maintain four uniform tyres.)
Another money-making wheeze dreamt up by the (IMO) cartel between the car and the tyre manufacturers and the breakdown firms- the cars get slightly lighter and have a slightly lower CO2 emission level (not enough to write home about), making them seem 'greener' (note that this is measured without a full size tyre in place, even if the boot well has the space to take it), they get slightly more profit from the sale as they don't drop the price if no well or a smaller well is made, and both they and the tyre manufacturers make a fortune from selling small tyres, wheels and kits that are far more expensive than full size ones. Plus more business for the breakdown firms (less no claims discounts and thus higher annual fees for more people).
If you don't get (or the car doesn't take one) a full size spare and your flat tyre isn't repairable, you have to swap the flat with another full size tyre if the flat is a front tyre and then fit the space saver to the rear (so that the speedo and mileometer works accurately), and of course, if the only alternative is the 'tube of goo', then 9 times out of 10 then its useless, and when it 'works' said tyre is then unrepairable anyway. Even worse if the tyre goes after the tyre outlets close - not sure whether you have to 'buy' an emergency spare from the breakdown man or 'hire' it until you can get a replacement full size tyre - either way, you'll either have to leave for appointments a lot earlier or wind up late everywhere doing a maximum of 50mph (assuming you can go any sort of distance with a space saver).
Customers are the only losers.
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It's simpler than that.
Manufacturers have targets for emissions for all the cars they produce, and the measurement is based on the official figures. So great effort and investment goes into getting those official figures down, whether or not the reduction is refective of real world use.
A classic case of targets having perverse effects (as they always do when the measures are internalised by the system). See ever improving exam results, improvements in crime detection rates, improvements in health service waiting times, you name it they have all been fiddled with great waste of resources and an actual worsening of services.
Did you know that the Mid Staffs hospital trust that oversaw over 400 unnecessary deaths employed consultants to 're-code' patient death records to help meet its targets?
Why so few people seem to understand that when you squeeze a balloon in one place it just bulges out somewhere else is beyond me.
Edited by Manatee on 09/01/2018 at 11:35
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"If you don't get (or the car doesn't take one) a full size spare and your flat tyre isn't repairable, you have to swap the flat with another full size tyre if the flat is a front tyre and then fit the space saver to the rear (so that the speedo and mileometer works accurately),"
I wonder how many people would actually bother to do that, although I believe you should ideally.
Last time I had a puncture, it was with the Octavia vRS, (pothole as usual, Oxfordshire as usual) and it was at night and raining, so I just fitted the space-saver to the N/S front where it was needed and drove 100 miles home. The Octavia is a very sure-footed car and I honestly noticed very little difference in the handling. And it was surprising how little extra time it took at 50 mph maximum.
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you have to swap the flat with another full size tyre if the flat is a front tyre and then fit the space saver to the rear (so that the speedo and mileometer works accurately),
That can be a factor (depends where the car measures from) but the other factors are (with a FWD car):
Most of the braking is on the fronts
Most of the weight is on the fronts
The fronts do the steering
different rotational speeds on the front will confuse the ESP (some makes say switch it off if a space saver is fitted)
and on some cars different rotational speeds will muller a LSD.
I know the best tyres should always be on the rear but at speeds up to 50 mph and driving sensibly with a type approved spare you should be fine unless a total loony.
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In my case the Octavia spare is the same size as the other 4 wheels. Seems an unusual size websites usually list 205 width tyres but mine are all 195/65/r15s. They were the Tyres fitted to the car when I bought it at 6 months old from the Skoda network.
Still a temp tyre stickered to 50mph but far better than a skinny spare or gloop tube.
Edited by IRC on 09/01/2018 at 12:45
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