Flat tire kit instead of spare
 

I know there are compressed air sealants that are for this purpose. But the other day I plugged my tire at home really easily. I had a 3/16" screw to pull out.
Why not just carry those slim jims, simple tools, a bike pump(yes I've filled a car tire with one. Its a workout. Though if the bead is broke it wouldn't work) and also the rubber cement (I bought a can, shouldn't dry out nearly as fast). Isn't it better to plug the tire properly anyway?

Of course this doesn't help with a sidewall cut. But for the cost and weight savings it seems a lot better than having nothing.

Or should I just buy the flat fix can? What's the success rate with those?

For long trips I'd carry the spare.

Or just a plug kit and an electric inflater. While this is not the ideal way to repair a tire it can save your behind.

Reminds me of some women who told me they prefer to call their insurance instead of learning how to change a flat tyre. As long as there is no sidewall cut, maybe those quick sealing kits would still make more sense than waiting for someone else to change a tyre in rush hour, while a car stopped at some odd place because some selfish Ashley doesn't want to get her nail polish damaged might become a traffic nuisance for everyone else.

It's been discussed before, but it's been a while. You're not going to see any improvement in fuel economy unless you're exclusively in stop and go traffic.

In my view, if you need the extra space, then ditch the spare tire. Otherwise, you might as well leave it in.

I consider tire plugs to be a permanent fix, and capable of fixing ~90% of tire "incidents". My preference is to plug even when a spare is available.

Carry a spare. I ran over some dropped metal on the highway and put a hole in the middle of the tire I could almost stick my pinky finger in. No plugging that.
I see people complaining all the time on the leaf forum that the leaf doesn't have a spare.

Also: Don't forget to check the tire pressure of the spare! When I did that it had 10PSI in it, it's supposed to be 60. :thumbup:

Btdt also, ended up costing me a $ grand for 2 replacement rims and tire as the spare donut is useless, has to be swapped/ installed on the rear, limits you to 45 mph .......

Any benefit happens mostly at acceleration, when you have to haul your weight to speed. Stop/go traffic and pulse and glide. Steady cruising at speed technically must mean a benefit but you are not going to detect it and it will be very very small.

I hate the sealants in cans. Worse than useless. I love the plug kits. I still have a plugged tire in service 10s of thousands of miles later. Awesome.

I imagine they have a goo kit and not a plug kit. I'm not a fan of goo because it's less effective at plugging holes and ruins TPMS sensors. I've used goo successfully once, and unsuccessfully a couple times.

One time I drove home from hiking and the next day had a low tire. Figured it was a fairly minor leak since I was able to get home without issue. Wanted a quick fix so I put goo in the tire. Then I found the puncture, a 9mm bullet lodged in the tread. I pulled the bullet out and the goo puked onto my garage floor. Perhaps I'd be able to stuff a bunch of plugs into that hole, but that was one situation where having a full size spare was nice.

I consider tire plugs to be permanent fixes too. Been using them for the past 50 years. I always have a 12vdc compressor along for the ride as part of my plug kit. I only use the spare tire or factory-supplied donut when the problem is a sidewall breach or serious tread separation.

I was driving 70mph on mine. I noticed it got pretty warm.

Even though I prefer a full-size spare instead of the donut, it's still preferable to have one instead of no spare at all. On a sidenote, sometimes it seems like even a motorcycle tyre is better than the tyres fitted to those donut spare wheels.

I drove normally on a donut tire for months. Sure, it’s lower performing than a normal tire, but then again what percent of capability does the average driver extract under normal driving? There’s huge safety margins built into everything.

Two of my cars came without a spare tire from the factory. A whole bunch of vehicles have no spare tire of any kind these days.

I carry plug kits and an electric pump. The goo will destroy the rim over time.

At least until the '90s, some people who still drove old cars from late-20s to early-40s on a regular basis in my country resorted to motorcycle tyres on them.

I carry a spare on everything I own, however none of the trucks at work carry a spare tire. We have mechanics on call and a 24 hour tire service if needed. My commuter has a compact spare and it has never been on the ground. I commute 60 miles a day and I am expected to be there for my shift. If one of my trucks at work has an issue the drivers get paid to wait for help. I maintain over 100 trucks at my service center and that is a lot of money saved by not having 100+ tires never being used. Fleets with good mechanic support rarely carry spare tires.

full size spare is the best, also make sure you have a thread on all tires without rotation direction wich makes it possible to use it with regular tire rotation (if you have same tire size all round)

Oh it definitely rode worse on the spare.
I was looking for a gravel pit to go set off some stuff and ended up on a sandy road and I could feel the spare cutting into the sand.
On regular roads when I would go around turns I could really feel additional body roll.

Definitely carry a little compressor.
The ultimate 12v air compressor is the ARB compressor, comes in single and double stack, but they run around $150 last time I checked for the single.
I got a nice one from Walmart for about $40 early this year. Its cord is long enough to inflate rear SUV tires and not take forever. Definitely better to air up your tire if it goes flat due to a single nail instead of putting the doughnut on.
Oh plus chances are your spare doughnut is probably flat. A doughnut with 20 to 30 psi isn't going to last very long. Most need 40 to 60psi to keep the rim safely up off road.

If you use tire slime they can't be patched.

My leaf didn't come with a spare or jack.
It had a 7 year old can of slime which I used for target practice and an air compressor that probably sux. Luckily it had the spot for a jack so I put one in and threw a spare in the back hatch area.

We lived in NM for 12 years. The first year we went through three windshields and four blowouts. Seems the tires that were good for VA weren't good for the long hot drives to El Paso. We got our spare fixed and aired up after the first blowout when we were half way to El Paso. We're now in Texas and I've learned to read the heat and speed markings on the tires before I buy new.

Yeah I only buy A or AA temperature rated tires.
The roads get freaking hot here.

I carry a full size spare and a plug kit. The tiny weight savings aren't worth the possibility of being stuck on the road because I didn't have a spare.

I have never used a plug kit.


Sure it's better than no spare at all, but sometimes a donut spare may be out of reach for the nearest tire shop depending on where a tire gets punctured. No wonder I have once seen an old lady getting quite mad after finding out her Chrysler PT Cruiser had only a donut spare instead of a full-size one...

Cool, thanks for the replies.

Until 2 weeks ago I've only had one flat while driving a car all my life (maybe 130k miles), and it was while I was mowing lawns. I came back from one job to my 2nd gen prius with a sidewall cut. I was 4 miles from home, put the donut on and finished my day of lawns. (yeah I had a rear hitch rack, custom built it to hold my 20" mower, worked great). I didn't even really notice the difference. I do check the pressure in the spare regularly or so I've tried.

Recently I picked up a thick screw with a dull end, from going into the center turn lane too early and hitting all the debris. It didn't leak until I pulled it out the next day. Easy plug fix that seems to not be losing any air.

Most of my driving has me stopping about once per mile, around town. I'll probably leave the donut, already getting 60mpg most of the time in my 3rd gen prius with watching traffic ahead and going the speed limit.