Why Spare Tyres are Important?

A spare tyre is basically an extra tyre carried in a vehicle. It can replace any one of the running tyres in case they go flat, gets punctured or any other emergency issues. Mostly, all the vehicles carry an entire wheel mounted with a tyre on it as a spare. It comes like this because installing the tyre on a wheel would take a lot of time and would also require special equipment to do it in a proper way. However, nowadays there are smaller spare tyres, also called space-savers and donut tyres, which have a smaller profile than that of the full-sized spare tyres. The space-savers are not meant for long distance travels, but are only suitable for a short distance drive. These are generally used as a replacement of the original tyre till the motorist reaches a repair centre or till it serves its purpose. A space-saver tyre comes with a maximum speed of 80 km/h. It is very imortant to check your spare tyre on a regular basis just like you check the tyres in use, because these spares will become your only hope in case one of your tyres gets damaged in the middle of your drive or in other kind of emergencies.

Storage of a spare tyre:

In most of the vehicles, the spare tyres are stored in a spare tyre well, an area in the center of the trunk of an automobile where we store the spare tyre when it is not in use. Many of the cars also have a bolt and wing nut style fastener in order to secure the spare tyre. To make the trunk look pleasant and clean, manufactures cover the tyre well with a cardboard on the top and place the trunk carpet on top of it. However, there are many other storage solutions for spare tyres such as:

1) You can keep your spare tyre in the cradle below the rear of the car. You can also access the cradle from the inside of the trunk and hence, you can store the tyre inside the trunk without even getting out the stuff that is already there, in order to access the tyre. But, the cradle storage option is only suitable for the front wheel drive cars because if we try to get it done on rear or four wheel drive vehicles, then the cradle may obstruct the path of the rear axle.

2) In most of the Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), the spare tyre is mounted externally on the rear door. However, you can also see the spare tyres mounted on the roof, the side and on the bonnet as well.

3) In case of the mid-engined and rear engined cars, the spare tyre is usually placed in the front boot.

4) Cars like Renault 14 and Subaru Leone used to store the spare tyres in the engine bay.

How to check your spare tyres:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87oXF8MLX-s[/embed]