Spare Tire Owners and Thoughts...

[Art138]

My spare setup. It's currently in the bed since I have been street parking in Chicago lately. I carry a bottle jack, jack stands, plug kit and compressor in all my trucks. Ironically, in almost 40 years of driving I have had one or two flats.

Having tossed these tires around (bulky) and looking at your set up do you lift over the rails or is there a quick release?

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[eswimm]

I've driven a lot of vehicles over 30+ years, some with spares and some without. As luck would have it, all my flats that required a spare (sidewall damage, irreparable puncture) were in the vehicles that had one. Since the Cybertruck is a square setup, I do like the flexibility of being able to swap the spare in if I have to replace a tire due to damage that differs substantially in tread depth from the replacement. In that case, the spare becomes the 2nd new tire and the old tire the spare.

 

[HaulingAss]

I carry a bottle jack, jack stands, plug kit and compressor in all my trucks. Ironically, in almost 40 years of driving I have had one or two flats.

That's not ironic, that's normal for people who buy appropriate tires and maintain the pressures properly. Neither my wife or I have had had a flat tire in two decades. And I off-road all the time (but I don't air road-going tires down to 15 psi ). Going back 40 years, we've had two or three flats or punctures between the two of us.

All of them could be easily plugged without the need to involve the spare (even though we used to carry spare tires in all of our cars and trucks). What a waste!

 

[TJCJr9999]

How many of yau have procured a spare tire, AND, commit to loading in the bed for trips? I have one, and seeing the space it requires/takes up has me rethinking... Is it really worth it for trips that may be long in miles, but are on main road/highways... Just risking going without and calling roadside service not be the answer? I don't currently even have the jack or tire tool, so best case, I tell roadside I already have the spare but need assistance getting it swapped/mounted. What are all your thoughts?

My Beast is my 7th and last truck (previous six all Toyota 4x4s, with way over 1 million miles cumulative), and I always had a spare (for convivence), on the long 5 hour trips, if I every lost a tire (not a simple nail that I could always plug myself, with the kit I carried in the truck), it would be a real pain to go replace a tire and get home at a reasonable time and cost. Last big tire fail was on truck number 6, a 2014 Tundra see attached picture, luckily I was close to home and hobbled home on what was left on the beads (my spare tire winch under the bed was rusted solid and I had to hack saw the holding chain the next day, I should have greased the damn thing when I bought it new). So this time I used my $2,500 voucher to get the snow tire set and now have 4 spares that I can use anytime, which is exactly what I did for our model Y also.

 

[HaulingAss]

Last big tire fail was on truck number 6, a 2014 Tundra see attached picture

You're doing it wrong, many people do. I love using my equipment hard, but I buy appropriate tires and take care of them.

 

[Jet55]

Having tossed these tires around (bulky) and looking at your set up do you lift over the rails or is there a quick release?

Its pretty heavy at 80lbs and needs to be lifted over the rails which is a PITA

 

[Jager]

Modern tires are vastly better than what we had years ago. Those advanced compounds and belt designs are very puncture resistant.

But, still, drive long enough and you will have a flat. And when that day comes, it might be anything from a 15-minute shake-your-head inconvenience to a multi-day saga filled with anxiety, expense, and who-knows-what-else bits of drama.

Maybe it's because I spend so much time on motorcycles - where a flat tire instantly brings a level of gravitas that nothing on four wheels can ever approach. Or having seen first hand both sides of that spectrum: how easy it all can be when one is prepared; or how incredibly awful it will be when one isn't. I had one pal with a sidewall puncture that required 8 or 10 worms before the tire would hold air. And I've had two other pals who both enjoyed two and three-day misadventures, respectively, because they both failed to imagine that a flat would ever happen to them.

All my vehicles - two wheels or four - carry a means to plug a tubeless tire, and then to make air to make it drivable. That's always Plan A.

All my cars and trucks, including the Cybertruck, also carry a spare. Because when Plan A doesn't work - and there are scenarios where it won't - it's nice to have a Plan B.

The three tire repair preparedness mistakes I see all the time here, and elsewhere, are:

1. Cheap, too-small plug kits. The tires on the Cybertruck are big and heavy. You need a heavy-duty, truck-grade plug kit.

2. Lite-duty air compressors. What works for topping off the air in your Model 3 ain't gonna work very well on inflating a 35" Cybertruck tire from dead flat. Or putting air back into the as-yet-unplugged tire - perhaps multiple times - so you can first locate the puncture; or so you have enough back pressure to make the reamer and insertion tools work.

3. No or little experience with a tire plug kit. Yeah, it looks really easy on YouTube, doesn't it?

Two hints.... use the reamer tool far more aggressively than you might first imagine. There's a tendency to be too gentle with it, a reluctance to make that hole in the tire any bigger than it already is. The challenge being that if you don't get that hole reamed out properly, you'll never get the insertion tool in there.

And probably most important.... next time you're up for a new set of tires, before heading off to the place that's going to install them for you, take out your electric drill, put a decent-sized bit in it, and drill a hole through your tread. You can do it on the front, with the steering wheel turned full-lock one way or the other, to make it a little easier. And now give that nice plug kit a go.

Finally, I'll echo something @HaulingAss mentioned up-thread... you have to believe you can do it.

That pal of mine who had to put all those worms in.... most guys would have given up long before that tire ever held air. But my friend expected to beat this challenge - he has plugged many a tire - and so he kept at it until he was.

 

[bigmoose70]

Was the tire deflated when you tried to insert it? That can cause the hole to close up from the deformation of the tire. Half inflated seems to work best. Most important is a "can do" attitude. If you feel defeated from the beginning, you will probably be defeated. I look at it as an opportunity to get back on the road quickly.

I carry different sizes of worm plugs, some are bigger/longer than others, some are slimmer, to go into tighter spaces. Every puncture is different, but the repair is the same concept, force the worm inside and remove the insertion tool while holding the worm firm with the retainer ring.

If it wouldn't go in, you just needed to ream the hole bigger. Not all kits have the same tools in them, that's why I recommend practicing on an old tire until you are confident with both your tools and your skill.

I need to carry different size worm holes. I feel like this is where I went wrong. The tire was about 20-30 psi when trying to plug. It was closer to sidewall on the lug so not perfectly in the middle of the tire. Also a tool to jack the truck and remove the tire would have helped to get better leverage on the plug device for more force.

 

[bigmoose70]

Modern tires are vastly better than what we had years ago. Those advanced compounds and belt designs are very puncture resistant.

But, still, drive long enough and you will have a flat. And when that day comes, it might be anything from a 15-minute shake-your-head inconvenience to a multi-day saga filled with anxiety, expense, and who-knows-what-else bits of drama.

Maybe it's because I spend so much time on motorcycles - where a flat tire instantly brings a level of gravitas that nothing on four wheels can ever approach. Or having seen first hand both sides of that spectrum: how easy it all can be when one is prepared; or how incredibly awful it will be when one isn't. I had one pal with a sidewall puncture that required 8 or 10 worms before the tire would hold air. And I've had two other pals who both enjoyed two and three-day misadventures, respectively, because they both failed to imagine that a flat would ever happen to them.

All my vehicles - two wheels or four - carry a means to plug a tubeless tire, and then to make air to make it drivable. That's always Plan A.

All my cars and trucks, including the Cybertruck, also carry a spare. Because when Plan A doesn't work - and there are scenarios where it won't - it's nice to have a Plan B.

The three tire repair preparedness mistakes I see all the time here, and elsewhere, are:

1. Cheap, too-small plug kits. The tires on the Cybertruck are big and heavy. You need a heavy-duty, truck-grade plug kit.

2. Lite-duty air compressors. What works for topping off the air in your Model 3 ain't gonna work very well on inflating a 35" Cybertruck tire from dead flat. Or putting air back into the as-yet-unplugged tire - perhaps multiple times - so you can first locate the puncture; or so you have enough back pressure to make the reamer and insertion tools work.

3. No or little experience with a tire plug kit. Yeah, it looks really easy on YouTube, doesn't it?

Two hints.... use the reamer tool far more aggressively than you might first imagine. There's a tendency to be too gentle with it, a reluctance to make that hole in the tire any bigger than it already is. The challenge being that if you don't get that hole reamed out properly, you'll never get the insertion tool in there.

And probably most important.... next time you're up for a new set of tires, before heading off to the place that's going to install them for you, take out your electric drill, put a decent-sized bit in it, and drill a hole through your tread. You can do it on the front, with the steering wheel turned full-lock one way or the other, to make it a little easier. And now give that nice plug kit a go.

Finally, I'll echo something @HaulingAss mentioned up-thread... you have to believe you can do it.

That pal of mine who had to put all those worms in.... most guys would have given up long before the tire ever held air. But my friend expected to beat this challenge - he has plugged many a tire - and so he kept at it until he was.

I will start to carry an electric drill in the vehicle. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Jager]

I will start to carry an electric drill in the vehicle. Thanks for the tip!

Dunno about an electric drill in the vehicle. But a breaker bar and long 21mm socket certainly can come in handy!

I have yet to make any kind of tire repair on my Cybertruck. But between its air-compressor-provided ground clearance and the fact that both front and rear wheels can be turned outward, my expectation is that it should be considerably easier to repair than the rear wheel on one of the S3XY models.

I had to physically remove the wheel from my Model 3 a year ago to repair a flat on its wheel, because I couldn't get enough space/leverage with it on the vehicle.

 

[AlmostHuman]

You're doing it wrong, many people do. I love using my equipment hard, but I buy appropriate tires and take care of them.

Or let people buy a spare if they want.

 

[HaulingAss]

Or let people buy a spare if they want.

Don't be silly, I'm not preventing anyone from buying a spare, I'm giving them more information to consider the tradeoffs. Knowledge is good.

I don't understand people like you who want to snuff out the free exchange of ideas.

 

[AlmostHuman]

Don't be silly, I'm not preventing anyone from buying a spare, I'm giving them more information to consider the tradeoffs. Knowledge is good.

I don't understand people like you who want to snuff out the free exchange of ideas.

You have no idea anything about me I’m simply saying telling people they are doing it wrong when you really don’t know what they are doing or why something may have happened seems silly.

 

[HaulingAss]

You have no idea anything about me I’m simply saying telling people they are doing it wrong when you really don’t know what they are doing or why something may have happened seems silly.

Well this isn't how I roll:

Some people create their own problems. I have watched it play out time and time again.

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