Thanks!

I take it you've had a spare blow out on you? I haven't, but thanks to you, i'll be ready for it when it does! I think i'm going to start calling AAA when I get a flat too, you never know what might happen.

I guess I just live my life on the edge.

 

I always buy 7 tires to cover front/rear rotations and an extra. On the Ridgeline we bought 9 tires to make sure we had enough. Next time around with the fit, I think i'm going to buy 11 tires.

WTF?

Here's some common Sense.. buy 4 tires. tire rack or DTD can get you a set of 4 tires in a couple of days... An econo-car rental for those few days costs less than a 5th tire... on the CHANCE that you might have something happen. Save your money... don't listen to severe...

How do posts like this keep making it onto this board?

~SB

 

It's not how they get here, it's more about how they stay alive.

In past years I've struggled to keep a matched set of tires on my cars. Something can always crop up to mess that objective. The thought of covering my ass by keeping things around has been a choice in the past, however, many of those attempts ended in stuff just laying around at a cost I couldn't bear.

Rotate your tires to extend the life, use the spare as such and get the busted one fixed - or but a new one - or, if your at a reasonable end of the sets life replace them all - or just do what you need to do.

Happy Valentines Day freaks K_C_

 

Just like a box of chocolates.... A public forum where freaks, who happen to drive Fits, gather...

On a side note, tires do have shelf-life, for those who like to stock up on them and are not tire dealers...

 

or you could just not run the crappy stock tires size and run something more common

 

My guess? That most people will get at least one flat over the lifetime of a car. If it happens at an inconvenient time, say 200 miles from home on a rainy Sunday, you'll wish you had a real sized spare tire. And the $250 that cost me? Some of it comes back from including the extra wheel in tire rotation- so that I really spent only the cost of the extra rim.

That might even be a tiny bit helpful when I sell the car. Or dent a rim on a NYC pothole...

Plus, at least once I went to replace a tire only to discover they don't make it anymore, so I had to buy two to have a matched pair.

 

In 17 years of car driving, I've had 2 flats. One from very old tires where the rubber fell apart, and one on a rental car. Continually buying 5 tires over all that time would have been pretty pricy, especially with the extra wheel, any sort of shaving of the wheel to get it matching the others, etc. I can rent a car fairly cheaply for a week, and even a cab isn't that bad. If I were always on long road trips in desolate areas, or did a lot of job related travel where I could't be late I could see having a true spare (and I wouldn't be driving a Fit). But for almost everyone, its a lot cheaper and easier to just have the donut.

 

You don't want a new tire on a car with tires that have miles on them. Its call mismatched tires and is very dangerous especially at highway speeds. I have a brand new truck and I already had 2 flats and the mechanic replaced the whole set at 4000 miles. It must be very dangerous to mismatch tires for them to spend the money to replace the tires on the tandem at a cost of 600 per tire for recaps for a truck with low mileage.

 

^ you sir make the most sense out of everyone here. lol buy 5 tires. HAHA just go to a 205/50/16 if you have a sport and purchase the road hazard in case you get a nail in the sidewall. done.

 

All this said, I have had 3 flats in my time driving. One on my Suabru when I had to avoid a collision and hit a curb. Blew the sidewall on a tire with 900 miles on it, that was out of production and I had put the last set of four, in the north east, on an AWD vehicle, which needs all four tires matching (and you thought finding a tire for the fit was hard!). I put the doughnut on, drove home (5 miles) and then hit the junk yard the next day, grabbed a rim and tire that would fit and drove on that for the next week (with the car in 2wd mode to keep it from hurting itself). That worked just fine and only cost me $75 (they only had aloy wheels in the size I needed). And I had a full size spare for the next time. (end of the story, I found one in Michigan and had it shipped over, the car died 8,000 miles later...)

The other two were this last winter. One in December one in January, both on the rear passenger side tire on my fit. Since I was running snows I just put one of the summer tires on. Though the second time I drove home on the spare to put the summer tire on.

There is no need to buy 5 of the same tire. just keep a cheep tire and rim around for emergencies. You should be able to get something that will fit for $50 at the junk yard. Take it with you on long trips if you want.

 

lol what year, and model subaru is that? i've never heard of a subaru that can disengage 2 wheels like a pick-up. lol its call all time all wheel drive for a reason.

 

1999 Outback. They have a spot for a fuse to disengage the center clutch on the automatics. That way you can run the spare tire without damage. All the automatic ones should have it.

 

curious. never heard or seen that. then again i was never in the subaru crowd

 

Last year I got a flat on my sport. The tires had about 4k on them with not much wear. Put the spare on, got to my local mechanic and it was the sidewall- hosed tire. They get their tires from tire rack too, as it turns out. And as it turns out, the dunnys are NO WHERE to be found at the time. Except at my dealer- 30 miles away. They have some. So my mechanic fixes my flat and says get it right to the dealer- it'll hold but do NOT just keep riding it. All the way to the dealer...and a 2+ hour wait to change a freakin tire. Thirty miles back home. An entire morning to fix that flat, and I work nights to boot. I was bleary eyed. While at the dealer, I bought an extra dunny without hesitation. It sits and waits and may very well save me a heap of problems and money changing all four tires if the dunnys are scarce at that time. Simple as that. I happen to like the stock dunnys. I'm an exception on the matter it seems.

 

Here you go. Labeled FWD, little black box, just behind the strut tower.



You have now seen one.

BTW, I can practically rattle off all the specs, info and problems with the 97-99 Subaru model years if anyone needs it, I am working on learning everything I can about the GE8 and hope to be just as much of an expert on that now that my Subaru knowledge is useless to me.

 

So true, mine is in the fuse box... Yeah, forgot about that... I'll keep you in mind with my Rex questions...

 

Just a quick question on the compact spare:

I got a flat last month, and when I put the compact spare on I noticed it didn't have the big yellow label that says "45 MPH OR DEATH" and that its load/speed rating was 99M. That's a higher rating than the stock Sport tires, even though obviously you don't want to be using that tire for long.

So what gives? Does that mean you can travel at normal speeds with the compact, or not? I took it slow myself, just curious about it.

 

Hey Subie... Is that 2WD feature also on the manual transmission Subarus?

 

The manual says this:

Periodically check the tire pressure of the compact
spare. It should be set to the specified pressure.
Specified Pressure: 60 psi (420 kPa, 4.2 kgf/cm2)
When driving with the compact spare tire, keep the
vehicle speed under 50 mph (80 km/h). Replace with
a full size tire as soon as possible.

 

Mine's a stick (5sp). It's in the fuse box under the hood. Now I vaguely remember (bought in '02) the sales guy when we did a final walkaround saying something about it being handy when towing the car...

Have to ask X_25 about this. Kinda doesn't make sense now that I think about it. If it's a relay/sw. then that would mean electronic control. Thought my Rex was 50/50 full time. Hmmm, have to hit the books on that one... been a while.