My 2016 Octavia came with gloop and a pump. I have therefore purchased a new spare 205/55/16 on a steel rim ,with tools, for £150 new. The tyre is the same size as those fitted to my alloy road wheels. But the spare is marked with the dreaded 50 mph maximum. I'll worry about that when I need to.

You're saying that your full size spare tyre has a 50 mph maximum? I don't understand, unless this is a budget thing that dealers give you that I didn't know about - God help us.

My 2016 Octavia came with gloop and a pump. I have therefore purchased a new spare 205/55/16 on a steel rim ,with tools, for £150 new. The tyre is the same size as those fitted to my alloy road wheels.

Couldn't you have sourced the correct size wheel from a scrap yard and fitted a tyre for a similar cost, thereby avoiding the 50 MPH limit?

I presume there's sufficient space for a full size wheel and tyre in the spare wheel well.

I have just purchased a 2012 Mazda6, no spare. I managed to source a second hand full size alloy with a very good tyre on it for £80 delivered. Space savers seem to be readily available too.

Tyre place didn't have the right size in stock so she had to wait 3 days before she got the car back. Moral of the story - don't buy Mazdas. Pity because they are a good car in other respects.

Hardly Mazda's fault she was taken to a tyre shop with no tyres was it. Would they have have had a tyre for another brand, the Mazda 3 does not use out of the ordinary tyres. And in my experience any decent tyre shop has access to next day delivery of any tyre they need.

Mazda do offer space saver spare wheel kits as dealer fit options. Or do what I have done twice now, go onto MyTyres site and buy a full size steel wheel and tyre, cost about £70 each time I have done it, only need the cheapest non directional tyre as a spare. Get a brace and suitable jack and you are never relying on breakdown cover or a can of gloop.

My son's girl friend has a 6 month old Mazda 3 saloon. No spare. She had a puncture and had to have the car taken to a tyre place on a tilt tray truck. Tyre place didn't have the right size in stock so she had to wait 3 days before she got the car back. Moral of the story - don't buy Mazdas. Pity because they are a good car in other respects.

They're no different to many other manufacturers in not fitting spares (of any type) as standard, and when buying new you either have to 'endure' the £350 - £400 'cost' of having one fitted by Mazda at the factory, or, as has been said, source a spare tyre/wheel combo independently at a cheaper price.

That all being said, there is a major difference in the latest Mazda3s, perhaps barring the Sport models, (which, if I recall, run on 215/45 R18 tyres and are 'reasonably' available) they all now run on the unusual 205/60 R16 tyres, and not the 205/55 R16 ones mine and the mk2s mainly ran on, which are widely available.

Not many 205/60 R16 tyres available at present (a look on Tyre Test for reviews [all tyres, including winter/all seasons] shows over 1000 for the 55 profile tyres, but only 114 of the 60 profile variant. Many other car manufacturers still spec the 205/60 R16 tyres, so I suspect this lack of availablility is why your son's gf experienced the problem at the fitter - not enough cars on the road to hold this unusual tyre in stock, yet.

Maybe more car manufacturers will change over to this tyre variant in due course as models are refrshed/replaced. I think that Mazda did make a mistake on this front by not seeing whether this was an unusual tyre, similarly there should be a 17in tyre option (allowable and for insurance purposes) for both the Sport model (so you don't have to endure the harder ride and higher expense of replacement tyres) and lower ones.