Spare wheel legal / right?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jon
  • Start date Start date
J

jon

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 said:
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?
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
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 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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