Under the boot floor of most cars there is a wheel nobody has looked at since the day the car was built. That is not carelessness, it is simply that nothing ever prompts you to. It is also why the spare so often turns out to be no use on the one night it is finally needed.
Every tyre loses pressure slowly through the rubber and the valve, and a spare loses it for years with nobody putting any back. A space saver is the worst case, because it is specified at a high pressure, often around sixty, and after eight years in the well it can be down to half of that. Fitted in that state it will not carry the car properly and it will destroy itself within a few miles. A full-size spare is a better bet, though the date code moulded on its sidewall is worth reading before you trust it, because rubber hardens whether it has been used or not.
That is the real reason we take calls at two in the morning from people who were certain they had a spare.
The airport run is the classic one. Five in the morning, bags in the boot, and a tyre that has gone down overnight on a driveway in Heaver Estate. There is a flight to catch and nowhere open, and the compressor in the boot is not going to hold it for the whole journey. Underground parking in Bedford Hill or Heaver Estate is worth flagging. A Heaver Estate cul-de-sac or a Hyde Farm main road, tell us which. A SW12 address in Hyde Farm and one in Nightingale Triangle are the same round.
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Overnight work around Balham is ordinary for us, and a good deal of it begins with somebody discovering the spare was not the answer they had assumed. On a permit street around Hyde Farm or the Nightingale Triangle there is nowhere to leave a car standing on a jack while you work out what to do next.
A driver on the Heaver Estate had the car up on the jack before realising the space saver was as soft as the tyre being replaced. We arrived with the correct size, fitted a new tyre to the road wheel, and the spare went back in the well.
A late call near Balham station where the jack was present, the spare was up to pressure, and the brace had gone missing somewhere in the car's history. That is common on a second-hand car and nobody ever discovers it at a convenient hour.
A full-size spare in good-looking condition that turned out to be over a decade old by its own sidewall stamp. It went on to get the car home and was replaced properly the next day rather than being left in service.
Twice a year is plenty and once a year is far better than never. It takes two minutes with a gauge, and the pressure it wants is printed on the tyre or the door plate rather than matching the road tyres.
Because a space saver is a way of moving the car, not a way of finishing the job. Where the tyre can be repaired we repair it and your spare never leaves the well. Where it cannot, the correct size goes on from the van.
Very often a compressor and a bottle of sealant, which is a weight-saving decision rather than a repair. Sealant is a way of limping somewhere. It also coats the casing and the sensor, which can turn a mendable puncture into a new tyre and a new sensor.
For a limited distance at a reduced speed, which is what its own sidewall tells you. It is narrower than the tyre it stands in for, so the car brakes and turns differently on that corner. Treat it as a way of getting home.
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