It must be 30 years since I've had a puncture, is a spare really worth the extra cost and weight. On the million and one chance you will get a puncture then it would be a recovery job but local tyre fitters may not have your tyre. What about these puncture repair aerosol cans, not meant to do too much good apparently!
I won't have one on the kit thoughbinwoukdt have a daily without as I do 25'000+ miles a year. I will have a jack and a can of tyre weld in the kit though just incase. Tyre weld is no good without a jack though.
I have one on mine, it was a god send on the M6 once
Not on the kit 2 X cans of tyre weld for me.
I have on my other cars, why not!?!?
quote:
Originally posted by theduck
I won't have one on the kit thoughbinwoukdt have a daily without as I do 25'000+ miles a year. I will have a jack and a can of tyre weld in the kit though just incase. Tyre weld is no good without a jack though.
When I had a puncture a few years ago and called out the recovery service, nail through the sidewall so squirts can would not work hey refused to take
me home 
The car was a range rover with LPG conversion with the tank in the spare wheel well so I left the spare wheel out the car. They claimed as the car
should have a spare wheel then they would only have had to swap it out to meet their obligations and left me stranded.
Had to get a lift home, sort out the spare and return to the car, it was 30 miles from home so not happy.
This was RAC I think.....
Check the small print on your recovery docs, he would not even take off the wheel although said "if the spare was flat or damaged as well then
recovery was allowed or they would have taken the spare to be fixed and swapped out".
On the road-going kit car, no, there's a can of tyre weld attached to the chassis.
On the van and trailer, yes, full spares, checked and inflated, more tyreweld cans attached too.
When touring on the bike, I did actually use the BMW-supplied tyre plugging kit (skewer/plugs/CO2 bottles) once, just outside Strasbourg in the small
hours, in the dark, hurrying back to the ferry at Le Havre, **superb kit**.
I had a tyre-slashing undead neighbour (he hated cars), so relied on the various tyre cans, They all worked 100% without fail on a damaged tread face.
They were, however, as useful as a chocolate tea pot when the sidewalls were slashed.
Recovery companies have been (well at least mine have) generally unwilling to help in the absence of a spare tyre.
Interesting that the RAC wouldnt recover you based on not having a spare wheel as many manufacturer cars these days dont come with a spare wheel as
standard, its an 'optional extra' and the compressor and slime box is std equiptment.
Cheers
Stot
[Edited on 19/4/13 by Stot]
My AA policy says that you have to pay a penalty charge if they have to recover you because you have no spare or repair kit. I have one but it's
worn on one side of the tread alot more than the other and I've got no jack or wrench at the moment, but I wouldn't take it out, it's
not worth the risk and I've got nowhere to put it. I carry a compressor at the moment too as I needed a pump to sort a flat last month.
It's better to have one and not need it than to be charged £250 to be recovered from the motorway in the middle of the night.
I remember the last time I used a spare. It was 15 years ago. I don't worry too much about not having one.
As per most above, i do have a spare "space saver" on the mondeo, and a couple of tins of spare in a can
I also have a spare for the caravan,
but the kit car, no, just a can of stuff, and as the tyre pressures are only 16psi, ive probably driven on flat tyres anyway
Yeah it was really if you carried one on your 7 type, just wondered what people did. I suppose it's a good trade off against weight if you are
touring, especially abroad but for track racing and weekend trips maybe it's not such a priority.
It's a £350 cost option also 
although i like the look of them on the back when it breaks up an already wide rear...
[Edited on 19/4/13 by Zagato]
quote:
i like the look of them on the back when it breaks up an already wide rear...
No because I'm an optimist. I have had a few on the tin top the past few years though.
I have a can of gunk in the 7
When I had a skyline Nissan thought a full size spare didn't impare performance
In the megane 225 cup the exhaust runs straight through the spare tyre well so you get a can of gunk - never had to call out recovery so don't
know what they think of that
A good few years ago I had to use the spare tyre on a mk2 MR2 - the space saver came out from under the bonnet, nicely replaced the rear wheel, which
then presented the problem of what to do with the punctured tyre/wheel as it won't fit anywhere in the car except the passenger seat (currently
occupied by a passenger!)
Our car was built with no spare or anywhere to put it. Seems all the breakdown people (please correct me if I am wrong here) refuse to help such cars
out if we get a puncture, on the basis we should be carrying a spare. even though there never has been one with the car. And becoming increasingly
common.
when we do a long trip (eg south of france ) I put a spare in the boot. Never been needed. Yet. Have had a punture though before we started carrying
it on holiday. The factory can of gunge, plus an extra one, meant we still had to pump the tyre up every 90 minutes. 50 down to 20 psi
Chatting about this with a tyre fitter whilst he was changing the rears on the tin top he came back with a 15" space saver from a Focus. It had
been left there years ago by someone who never came back for it so it changed hands for a tenner.
Any idea if it will do the job on a 7 or if it might be too much of a squeeze under the arches ?