Why Do New Cars Not Have Spare Tyres Anymore?

Sally Driver
December 16, 2012

Has your car got a spare tyre? A puncture's bad enough. But as more and more drivers are discovering, there's often another nasty shock in store for them when they try to change their tyre following a puncture.

Many car manufacturers have began to phase out the spare tyre in new cars. Breakdown specialist the RAC were called by 80,000 motorists last year who had discovered they didn't have a spare tyre. There are few things more depressing on a car journey than the 'flud, flud, flud' sound of a flat tyre, but at least in the past you had a spare tyre and you could change your flat tyre and carry on with your journey.

Even though you invariably seem to get a puncture when it's dark, when it's raining and when the car is laden with tired children, luggage and a front seat passenger reluctant to get their hands dirty, but unusually eager to point out what you're doing wrong.

Changing a spare tyre is hassle enough, but in recent years, coping with a flat has become even more stressful. For without fanfare, motor manufacturers have begun to phase them out. Many motor manufacturers no longer supply a spare tyre as standard with a many new cars.

Each year, tens of thousands of stranded drivers lift up the boot carpets of their new cars looking for a spare tyre and a jack, only to discover a 'tyre repair kit' - an electric pump, a bottle of sealant and instructions written by someone with only a passing familiarity with cars and the English language.

Most people will admit they know almost nothing about car repair.

Ask them to change a spark plug and they'll be baffled. Tell them their 'big end' has gone and again they would be baffled.

But most pepople do know how to change a spare tyre, and that admittedly basic knowledge is a badge of pride.

We know about loosening the nuts before jacking up the car.We know where to fit the jack.

So car manufacturers are making our one car-related skill redundant. And they are making it redundant in force.

Out of the top ten best-selling cars in Britain, only the Volkswagen Golf now comes with a full spare tyre as standard.

Lucky owners of top-of-the-range new cars get skinny space-saving spare tyres that take up less room in the boot, but which will keep them going for 50 miles or so until the driver can get home or to a garage. A few find their cars are delivered kitted with four 'run-flat tyres' -- tyres with strengthened walls that stay hard even when the air has escaped.

But the unfortunate ones -- the owners of the bottom-of-the-range Honda Jazz, Renault Clio and Vauxhall Astra, for example -- have to make do with a sealant kit.

If you've ever tried to use an emergency tyre inflation kit, you'll know how awkward and messy they can be.

Drivers have to connect a pipe from a compressor in the repair kit to the flat tyre's valve, plug the compressor into the cigarette lighter and switch on the compressor to fill the tyre with air and sealant.

So I resent car manufacturers making my one car-related skill redundant. And they are making it redundant in force.

Out of the top ten best-selling cars in Britain, only the Volkswagen Golf now comes with a full spare tyre as standard.

If you've ever tried to use an emergency tyre inflation kit, you'll know how awkward and messy they can be.

Drivers have to connect a pipe from a compressor in the repair kit to the flat tyre's valve, plug the compressor into the cigarette lighter and switch on the compressor to fill the tyre with air and sealant.

Many car manufacturers are slowly phasing out the spare tyre

Then you have to unplug it all, drive the car for two miles to disperse the sealant throughout the inside of the tyre to tackle the air leak, stop and park, plug the compressor back into the tyre and cigarette lighter, and pump up the tyre fully.

Even then there's no guarantee you can drive the car away. Sealant kits only work with holes 4mm or smaller. Bigger gashes are impossible to repair -- a fact you will discover after an hour or so fiddling around on the roadside.

And even if you can get puncture kits to work, many garages refuse to repair tyres if they have been filled with sealant, claiming it is too time consuming and expensive to clean them out. A £15 puncture repair can end up costing the £100 price of a replacement tyre.

The demise of the spare is already having an impact on emergency call-outs. Green Flag, the car breakdown service, said the number of call-outs to drivers stranded by flat tyres leapt 20 per cent last year.

The RAC had 80,000 calls in 2011 from motorists who found they hadn't got a spare in the boot, and who were unable to use the sealant kits. That works out as around one fifth of all their tyre problem calls.

Prakesh Patel, an RAC patrol officer, is not a fan.

'I've never been very successful with them,' he says. 'They are fine if it's a small hole caused by a nail. But the problem is that when you use the sealant it ends up on the road and it's messy.

'It costs £20 to £30 to replace the sealant, and when you take the tyre to be repaired they won't take it because of the glue inside. So you have to pay for a new tyre as well.

'I had a call out this week from a middle-aged women who couldn't find the spare but thought there must be one.

'When we opened up the boot the hole that should have been filled by a tyre was instead filled with a piece of polystyrene. She looked at me in disbelief.'

So why are car manufacturers cutting back on spares?

One reason is the demand for ever larger boots. Families want people carriers with seven seats, plus room for buggies and luggage.

Something has to give, and that something is the spare tyre. Removing the tyre which is usually stored under the boot's carpet gives more space for boot seats to be folded away when not in use.

But above all, getting rid of the spare saves the manufacturers money. It is cheaper to fit a £20 repair kit than an £80 spare tyre.

There is also the issue of European and UK legislation designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The motor industry is under intense pressure to shave off excess weight from cars to improve fuel efficiency, and scrapping the spare removes up to 25kg of weight.

While drivers fume, the car industry insists it is giving consumers more choice.

John Visscher, of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, says: 'Some people are comfortable with changing a tyre, but there are other motorists who want the ease, speed and the safety of not having to change a tyre on the side of the road. And there are drivers who don't know how to change a tyre, or who don't want to.'

The manufacturers argue that if a customer lavishes £15,000 on a new car they would be pretty daft not to double-check what they were getting for their money.

The RAC had some 80,000 calls from motorists who discovered that their car didn't have a spare tyre in 2011 (file picture)

The trouble is, how many motorists would ever imagine they'd be sold a new car without a spare tyre.

Some manufacturers allow you to 'upgrade' by paying extra for a spare, but in many models there simply isn't space.

The RAC -- which wants spare tyres to be included as standard -- says dealerships need to spell out more clearly what customers are getting.

RAC technical director David Bizley says: 'Not including a spare wheel has become a growing trend among car manufacturers over the past five years, to the point where about 50 per cent of punctures registered in 2012 happened to vehicles which did not have a spare wheel.'

There is no sign that spares are about to come back into fashion either. It won't be many years before they are available only as a pricey optional extra -- along with sun roofs and a sat-nav.

That means for the foreseeable future, the only spare tyres middle-aged men like me will have in our cars are the ones around our waists.

This also causes problems with driving tests, should you get a puncture shortly before the driving test, you have no opportunity to change the spare wheel, resulting in thre cancellation of the driving test. Driving schools and driving instructors are having to pay extra to manufacturers to purchase spare wheels!

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