replacing the spare tire

[sigtauenus]

I've got a little over 150,000 miles on the 98, and its time to buy the 4th set of tires.

 

As far as I can tell, the spare is the original michelin, and looks it. It has some nasty cracks on the sidewall and tread, so I don't know if it is roadworthy should I need it.

 

Is it worth buying a matching 5th tire for the spare, or do you guys just pick the best of the 4 you're replacing and rotate it to the spare? The spare wheel looks painted silver instead of chrome like the rest of the wheels, unless its just really, really, really dirty chrome, so they'd still have to bust it down and remount the used tire.

 

Sam

[daftpup]

I'd just keep the best 1 from the old set but I'm a cheap b-----d.

[95shakinPF]

Yeah, what he said! These tires can be expensive so just keep an old tire for your spare. Yes I would get rid of the old spare if its as bad as you say, you may get stuck without a spare if it blows out immediately after putting it on the vehicle( Ive had this happen to me before)! good luck!

[zonianbrat]

In my opinion it kinda depends on what your using your truck for and how worn out are your old tires. If you wheel alot then I'd say buying a 5th is a good investment. On the other hand if you just do highway and city driving and your old tires still have decent tread left then just use one of those.

[94extreme]

x4.. i have one of the old ones as my spare now.

[csutke]

x4.. i have one of the old ones as my spare now.

 

x5.. and x2

[XPLORx4]

As long as your new tires won't be significantly larger than the current ones you're replacing, and the best of the 4 still has more tread than the treadwear-bar indicator level, I would use an old tire as your spare. The only reason I wouldn't use an old tire to replace a cracking original spare is if I were upsizing the tires, eg. from 235-70-15's to 31-1050-15's. You want to have a spare tire that is within 1" diameter of the rest of the tires on the vehicle.

[Roost]

I keep a full size exact copy for spare and then do a 5 tire rotation. It also gives me a full size spare that I can go as far as necessary until I can get it fixed. The recommended distance on the spares are usually only 50 miles an hour for 50 miles. That sucks if you are in the middle of nowhere and this is a little bit of insurance that you get home or the store with four good tires. Just my $.02.

Edited October 11, 2007 by Roost

[Trainman]

If oyu have the underbody spare (rather than the rear carrier mount) you will not be able to put a bigger tire than stock in there without modifying the parts that stop the tire from moving side-to-side. trust me, I know as I tried to do that. What I have done in the past is in summer, use one of the snow tires as a spare, reverse in winter. But since I upsized the tires by an extra inch, they do not fit underneath.

 

No problem if you have the rear carrier tho.

[Mr. Pickles]

X6 on keeping the best of the old set, and ditto on keeping it close to or the same diameter. Width doesn't really matter compared to diameter. I went to 31x12.5 on my current set of ProComp MT's and kept a 31x10.5 BFG MT from the old set as the spare (rear tire carrier). Of course, a 5th full size is a fine option if you can afford it. Sure, its a bit more cash, but with a 5th tire in rotation, its just that much longer time before you have to buy a new set.

 

Another option might be to check your local used tire shop or junk yard, or see if a new tire dealer has a used rack. You'd be surprised, some really good tires can end up there due to a wreck, or damage to 1 or more tires on a truck, and a guy just opts to replace them all at once, stuff like that. I bought a set of 4 31x10.5 MT's with probably 80% tread a while back for my old 720 Nissan truck for like $150. Just a thought...