Spare wheel legal / right?

Discussion in 'General Motoring' started by jon, Sep 17, 2006.

  1. jon

    jon Guest

    Hi I have just got a Astra 1.7 DTI and the spare wheel is 185/65 R15
    whereas the other 4 wheels (in use) are 175/80 R14. Is the spare wheel
    OK/legal to use if I need to? Or have I been had by the car dealer?
     
    jon, Sep 17, 2006
    #1
  2. jon

    Tariq Guest

    Is the car new? Often new cars are supplied with a space-saver spare
    wheel (e.g. my Corsa has 16" alloys but a 15" spare - different sized
    tyres on them make the rolling diameter the same, so it's all good).
    But it sounds like your spare is bigger than the other wheels?

    Tariq
     
    Tariq, Sep 17, 2006
    #2
  3. jon

    Chris Guest

    Looks a bit iffy to me. The tyres are different diameters, slightly
    different profiles would be OK for a while. Shouldn't laugh really but the
    car would want to drive in a circle as opposed to going in a straight line.
     
    Chris, Sep 17, 2006
    #3
  4. jon

    jon Guest

    Thanks for the replies.

    The car was from a used car dealer.

    I have educated myself about tyre numbering.

    Hence the travelling diameter is 2.2% larger for the spare.
    ref: http://www.tyresave.co.uk/tyresize.html
    "We recommend ±2.5% is the MAXIMUM difference in diameters"

    However I plan on replacing it with the same size as the others, as it
    would be a danger to drive with it.
     
    jon, Sep 18, 2006
    #4
  5. jon

    adder1969 Guest

    I'm not sure it'd be any more dangerous than a space-saver typre spare
    to drive on but I think technically it's illegal to have bigger wheels
    on the front than the back so if you had a flat on the front you'd have
    to move one of the rears to the front and put the spare on the back.
    For the frequency that punctures occur I wouldn't worry about it or I'd
    look out for a spare wheel of the correct size on ebay or something.
     
    adder1969, Sep 18, 2006
    #5
  6. jon

    jon Guest

    Thanks for the advice Adder1969
     
    jon, Sep 18, 2006
    #6
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