Hi all,
Seeing as I seem to be the one who has most accidents (and by that I mean things going wrong with the car - not crashes) I feel I should brighten up your day with this rather funny story.
I was driving home yesterday from picking my mum up and on my way to work. Upon negotiatng a mini-roundabout there is this terrific bang and a horrible scraping noise. Look in the mirror and "hmmm - that looks like my spare wheel" It was. As I had turned right, the tyre had fallen out and the tray was dragging across the floor. To make matters worse, there was no-where to pull over safely as there wre bollards so I pulled in as soon as I could, legged it down to this roundabout where some guy had stopped to block the traffic, I picked up this tyre, waved a thank-you to the guy and walked off. How that must have looked.
On a more serious note, I'm sure by now you have guessed that on my car, the wheel is held in a tray underneath so when I got home (fortunately, this happened around the corner) I looked and will now try to explain in a sloppy way what was wrong. Holding the tray in place from the boot is a bolt with a hook on the end fastened into the boot. I shouild mention here that my car is a Mark 4 Fiesta so you all know. Anyway - the week before, my Dad and I had put a new wheel there but this is one occassion where tightening the nut is bad. Very bad. THe bolt is fixed in with 2 plastic - yes PLASTIC rivets so when you turn the bolt, you a putting a force on both of them. These had completely snapped so the bolt was moving up and down in the boot every time we hit a bump and eventually worked loose. As you can imagine, this is quite dangerous so my Dad put 2 proper bolts and some loctite on the bolt so the car will fall to pieces before that comes loose.
Maybe it's just my stupidity but should you own a Mark 4 Fiesta, this is something to watch out for as I can imagine it would have been less than funny should it have happened the day before on the M58.
Many thanks
Adam
--
"Ah...beer - my only weakness - my achilles heel if you will"
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A guy I used to be in a band with owned a Pug 205 some years back that also had an underslung cage to store the spare tyre. At some point the car had been fitted with a rear exhaust section that was slightly different to the manufacturers spec and so came into light contact with the tyre cage. When he actually needed to change the tyre, he found that the heat from the pipe had transferred through the cage and left a huge dent on the tyre wall where the rubber had lay on top of hot metal..
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And underslung spare wheels are (apparently) notorious for being nicked.
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I've never quite seen the point. I mean, it's still taking up exactly the same amount of space, just on the other side of the boot floor. And when you do come to need the spare, I bet it's absolutely covered in grime of various kinds.
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Yes, but it makes life a whole lot easier if your boot is crammed full of stuff which needs to be removed before you can get at the spare.
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had same problem with my mark III fiesta many years ago, was bombing it down motorway and lost the tyre, just remember see sparks flying out the back as the metal plate was dragging on the floor! mine was a metal bolt - so they must have cost cutted on the mark 4 and gone for plastic!
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Not really - you still have to move all the stuff out the boot to get to the bolt!
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The bolt itself is metal but it's fastened into the car by plastic rivets - I'm amazed there haven't been more stories of this as they're so weak. Also, the wheel doesn't really get dirty as the tray itself supposedly protects it although when you open it there's about 10lbs of stones and gravel in it!
At the end of the day though it's a wheel but given the choice I'd rather have it in the boot to be honest.
--
"Ah...beer - my only weakness - my achilles heel if you will"
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Not at all, OP - the hex-head is just in front of the tailgate catch. You might need to dig a bit to get the spanner to loosen it though.
But when the spare is needed for the first time in 5 years, everything is likely to be seized up. I am not sure whether it is better for one's back having to lift wheel out of boot, or to get it back into an underslung cage. Some wheels are bl**dy heavy.
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Just thank your lucky stars you didn't have an old Rover P5. These had an underslung spare that, in the event of a rear puncture, you were unable to get to as the car sunk to the point where you couldn't release it. IIRC the jack was mounted with the tyre but I stand to be corrected on that one.
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Alright then - maybe that is a little worse than the Fiesta :-)
--
"Ah...beer - my only weakness - my achilles heel if you will"
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