Spare wheel on Fiesta

SailorSam

It wasn't a skinny spacesaver, i've seen them. The one that comes with the Fiesta looks without a closer examination to be exactly the same as the others.

LincolnshireYokel

I wouldnt buy a car with no spare wheel, its a disaster waiting to empty your wallet.

If you get a flat, if you are in the AA or RAC, then as long as you call them they will bail you out. if you arent, then you have two options, either run to to nearest garage on the flat tyre, which WILL wreck it and then you'll have to stick a new one (or axle pair, i always put axle pairs on), or the other option is take it off and walk miles to the nearest garage and see if they will fix it, and then roll it back miles, which is g'teed to do your back in for a week.

wallbash

SailorSam wrote: »

It wasn't a skinny spacesaver, i've seen them. The one that comes with the Fiesta looks without a closer examination to be exactly the same as the others.

Was surprised if it was a space saver , but had to clear the confusion up.

So the 'spare' looked like the standard tyre , but failed , did you not ask .......... why? .

SailorSam

I've just been out to the car to check. The tyres are 195/50R15, coincidentally all four of them. The spare in the boot is 175/65R, looking at it in situ there is very little difference which i'm sure few people would notice, or maybe pendulum is right and everyone but an idiot would spot it straight away.
When i bought the car it was exactly 3yrs old with a low mileage and had just had an Mot. i checked in the boot and saw a brand new tyre and presumed with buying from 'Peoples' a Ford agent it would be fine. When i had to put the spare on i did notice that it wasn't a matching alloy like the others but thought nothing of it. When i got the fail and the tester told me it was the wrong wheel, even though it was a few years after buying it i felt as if someone in Peoples had taken a chance to switch it for his own car, knowing that it wouldn't probably come to light for a long time.
I've seen spacesaver wheels, and i wouldn't expect to get a Mot pass with one of those.

BagOfSpanners

All Fiestas that are supplied with a spare wheel (which is probably a minority) are supplied with a 175/65 R14 steel wheel. This is slightly narrower than the wheels fitted to most Fiestas, so it is effectively a "spacesaver". However, some Fiestas (the bottom of the range ones, and possibly also the Econetics) are also fitted with these as running wheels.

It should be fine to present a Fiesta for test with one of these in the boot, but unless your Fiesta is fitted with these as standard, I don't think it will pass an MOT with one fitted to an axle.

FWIW, I think Ford were asking £50 extra for a spare wheel when I bought mine. Turned out to be money well spent when I slowly drove into a rock hidden in the grass at the side of the road a couple of weeks later.

gilbert_and_sullivan

SailorSam wrote: »

I've just been out to the car to check. The tyres are 195/50R15, coincidentally all four of them. The spare in the boot is 175/65R, looking at it in situ there is very little difference which i'm sure few people would notice, or maybe pendulum is right and everyone but an idiot would spot it straight away.
When i bought the car it was exactly 3yrs old with a low mileage and had just had an Mot. i checked in the boot and saw a brand new tyre and presumed with buying from 'Peoples' a Ford agent it would be fine. When i had to put the spare on i did notice that it wasn't a matching alloy like the others but thought nothing of it. When i got the fail and the tester told me it was the wrong wheel, even though it was a few years after buying it i felt as if someone in Peoples had taken a chance to switch it for his own car, knowing that it wouldn't probably come to light for a long time.
I've seen spacesaver wheels, and i wouldn't expect to get a Mot pass with one of those.

Very similar with my wife's C2 VTS, 195 width on16" standard size alloys, but the spare is on a steel wheel and equivalent size to but a 185 width on 15" wheel, fortuately a decent tyre type not a wheelbarrow fitment such as the usual space saver thing.