This one's lovely. I had a blow-out two days ago, where one of my fairly new Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 tires (~1000 miles since purchase) decided to give it up on a modest road bump. The sidewall of the tire just failed and let all the air out in a big whoosh. No problem: it's clearly a defect, and it should be covered by the manufaturer. I have to wait, though, while Costco orders a replacement tire. It's a special order.

Meanwhile, I have the donut "space saver" spare tire on my car (which looks absolutely silly in a flared wheel well, but such is life). As it happened, the spare tire was somewhat low on air when I installed it on the side of the road, so I limped with it to a gas station and filled it back up. That was enough to get me to work. Since then, my wife and I have been carpooling, while I wait for the replacement tire to come in.

Guess what? The spare tire, itself, decided to go flat. My car is now, pitifully, sitting in the parking lot with a flat spare. I've been calling around, and this turns out to be a more complex problem than I'd imagined. NTB says they don't touch space-saver spare tires -- too small for their mounting equipment. The BMW dealer says they can special order a replacement tire (just the rubber, not the wheel) for $140, and they seem to use a nearby Discount Tire for their mounting needs.

$140 seems insane for a dinky spare tire. I guess it's a supply and demand thing, but I'm curious if anybody else here has ever dealt with a problem like this.

at one point I priced a pizza cutter spare, it was only available as a complete (tire / rim combo). the price was $440 (usd).
this was no fancy style unit, and not for some high dollar special car. insulting to say the least.

try junk yards.
kinda sad when you need a spare spare.

How much is a full size spare from BMW?

What about a can of aerosol filler foam - the "Get you home" cans you can buy for an emergency fill-and-fix. It would get you home, or to the tyre bay.

Man, I thought they made those things out of solid rubber so that wouldn't happen.

Solid rubber would be nice, but it would also be more expensive (strike 1) and heavier (strike 2), not to mention non-standard (strike 3, you're out).

Maybe I'm lucky and the tire just has a leak that can be plugged. The paranoid in me says that it shouldn't be *that* difficult to just replace the tire on the existing rim. That's the $140 I got qouted. I can't even imagine the cost of a whole new wheel (and, so far as I can tell, the current wheel has nothing particularly wrong with it).

Also, I inquired about those foam filler things and got a host of negative responses. Apparently, they ruin the tire that you've sprayed them inside, and tire shops don't want to work on them as they have a habit of going boom when you're trying to dismount the tire from the rim.

Maybe we just need to move to tweels and get it over with.

bicycle pump?

If the spare went flat due to a tire bead or other slow leak try the following. If it went due to puncture or sidewall failure you're SOL.

Jack your car so the tire is off the ground. This may be easier to try with the flat spare tire off the car entirely.

Get some spray ether (aka carb cleaner), shoot some up under the rim of the tire (between the rim and the tire bead). Put a spark to it. It'll pop the bead back on and infate the tire in one shot.

Start with a little and work your way up until you get a big enough pop to do the job.

Check the pressure afterwards with a gage.

-Zeke

-STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I'VE DONE THIS MYSELF, BUT IF YOU'RE NOT 100% COMFORTABLE WITH SMALL EXPLOSIONS - DON'T DO IT!-

What's so hard about taking the donut-wheel down to a gas station to inflate?
Or for that matter, use the second car to deliver the standard wheel/tire to/from the repair shop (Costco?) and mount it in your own driveway.
Then either 1) take the donut-spare to a shop to look at or 2) get another one from a wrecking yard.

It's not clear yet in this thread what condition the donut-spare is in. Has the bead separated from the rim?
Is it only deflated?

Don't want to put the tire on yourself?
Got Tripple-A?

Hope you find a solution-

You might want to take the space saver to a service station and see if you can it plugged. If its in bad shape too instead of paying $140 for a new one try junk yards. They get tons of cars in there with space savers that have never been used.

I keep a service station quality tire plug kit in my car and a cigarette lighter pump (have it in a small old suitcase). If I get a nail in my tire I usually don't even have to take the tire off the car to make a permanent repair.

I'm perfectly comfortable mounting and unmounting wheels from my car, and I'm indeed likely to drive the big tire over to Costco to get the new tire mounted and such.

The trick is that the spare lost its air slowly over two days. I don't yet know if it's pluggable or if it's a gonner. Worst case, it needs to be replaced, and that may be very expensive. I suppose I could try to find another in a wreck yard, but then the whole point of a spare is to rescue you when you're stuck with a flat on one of your real tires. It seems pretty lame to try to save money on a used spare and later have it go and fail on you when you need it.

(Don't get me started on AAA. It takes them over an hour to show up, and that's if you're lucky. I see them as valuable not for flat tires, but instead for more serious car failures.)

I was under the impression that non-full size spares were not intended to be complete replacements. My memory of high school drivers-ed tells me the standard is 50 miles under 50mph is the limit, basically lasting long enough to get somewhere where you could put a new tire on.

Yup, I think that's exactly what my manual says. I personally hate donut spares, and thought BMW went in for full size spares? I've got my least worn old tire in my garage waiting to get mounted on a replacement rim. I'm sure I won't get around to doing it until I have my next flat, but it's one of the things I plan to do.

Matthew

I don't know about the bigger BMW's, but my Z3 has a donut spare. The M version didn't even have the spare.

Seems to be at about 23:10.

On a recent TVR meet one of the guys had a puncture driving up north, so filled the tyre with the foam stuff. It appeared to hold up well to 130mph plus driving up through the highlands on twisty roads.

Impressive!

(Disclaimer - he tested it so we don't have to)

Great clip! The only thing missing is the great pop/thud sound of the tire seating itself on the rim.

-Zeke

Oh, great.. now another whole set of JC vid's I need to download!

Good thing we have a reasonably quick connection here.

Cheers!