Spare Tire Madness!

[Roadrunner777]

As I recently posted, I am getting ready to retire my Explorer... but got hit with some delays because of my work schedule. The thing is (was) my right front tire was starting to show steel and I was getting some odd random steering action on the highway. So, I thought... simple enough, I'll put the spare tire on it. And, so it begins:

My spare tire appeared to be an original factory tire. It's a Firestone of the right size and vintage.... so how hard could this be?

Plan A was to put it on the right back and rotate the back to the front to match the tires on the front axle. Nope. Right rear rim will not come off... too much corrosion I suppose. I hammered and pried to the point where I might damage THAT tire, and I didn't have time to do the penetrating oil deal.

Plan B was to put the spare on the right front, directly replacing the bad tire, and live with whatever mismatched tires do. Right front comes right off. I slide the spare on over the manual hub... it won't go. The center hole of the spare tire rim is simply too small, and not by a little bit either. No choice but to put the bad tire back on.

Plan C was the winner. I took the Exp to the tire shop and had them swap the spare tire on to the existing front rim. cost me $22 and it actually drives pretty good.

So... I can't imagine anyone here has not used their spare tire at some point, but if you have not... I know it would be a pain to check, but if you really want to have confidence that your spare is going to work for you, you might want to check this. I really can't make sense of it except that perhaps the spare was intended for a 4x2?

Oh well!

(someone asked about my repair manual set... hang in there, I was scheduled for 60 hours this week, so not a lot of time yet.)

 

[Mbrooks420]

I’ve used my spare, and it fit fine. As for running a tire that’s over 20 years old on the highway, you are asking for major trouble. B

 

[Rainier]

Uhm, ya, I wouldn't run a 20 year old tire.

Normally you have same size on spare and you rotate it in, and one out, so you have 5 of same size tire, and every rotation spare goes on and one of the other tires becomes a spare...

That said, I'm to lazy to do that.

 

[974X4BLACKSPORT]

Additional things to look out for with spare tires and tire rotations. Some modern tires are "directional", meaning they are designed to rotate in one direction only, this means when performing a tire rotation that the tire can only be switched from front to back, or vise-versa, and not side to side or "criss cross" like tire rotation diagrams say. These uni-directional tires will have instructions on the sidewall noting this, or an arrow. Now you can dismount the uni-directional tire from the rim, and flip it on the rim so that the side that was facing out is now facing the other side of the rim and then put it on the other side of the car, but that seems like a lot of work!

 

[Mbrooks420]

I would guess you have a second gen spare. They don’t have a large enough center bore to clear a first gen 4wd hub.

Virtually no one does a 5 tire rotation. You’d have to do it far too often to wear the 5 tires uniformly.

 

[roscoe 0202]

or a jeep wheel
roscoe