I must thank the Mazda company for thinking of me when I bought my new CX5. I was worried that I had nowhere to put my jumper leads for when the battery goes and my automatic can't be towed or push started.
Further, I needed a place to put my hydraulic jack to replace the inadequate, rotten jack supplied with the car.
Imagine my delight to discover that the company put a skinny inadequate spare wheel in the spare wheel bay that gave me all that extra space.

 

That "inadequate" spare is better than the situation in my Z4M which has no spare at all. It came with a can of fix a flat and an air compressor. If the tire is damaged beyond the capability of the goop, it will require a tow (and if it does work the tech has to remove all the goop from the wheel before putting a new one on). At the least with the Mazda, you have a spare which can get you to your destination so you can have the flat repaired. I would suggest you carry an air compressor and something like this to try and repair the tire instead of using the spare (for punctures anyway):

 

Yep, many new vehicles no longer come with spare tires. I admit that it’s been over 15 years since I had a flat, and that was a nail and could have been fixed with fix-a-flat and a compressor.

 

I think that everyone misses the real issue here. The so called 'space saver wheel' isn't put into many new cars because the manufacturer is concerned with your welfare and to create space like it is portrayed. It is there to save them money.
In all the cars I have had in my lifetime, it has been normal practice to rotate the tires and wheels as necessary. When they get a bit worn and it's time to rotate, having a full sized spare allows the car owner to match the new spare with with one new tire and select the best worn one to go in the spare wheel bay. Generally that spare stays there throughout the time I own the car.
Enter the skinny factory money saver. Now have to buy two new ones not one.

 

Well, you can rotate that way if you have bias ply tires. Radial tires take a set per side so you don't cross them on the car. It's probably been 40-45 years since new cars had bias ply tires. The car companies were using space savers in the late 70's. and even back then, sometimes there was no spare.Either by plan or necessity I bought a 1975 Dodge that was built with no spare because there was a strike at the tire suppliers when it was built.

I'm not a fan of space savers, but that's what we get today.

 

Wow, someone is living back in the 1970s! There is nothing wrong with cross rotation for modern non-directional radial tires, they don’t “take a set” whatever that meant.

https://www.discounttire.com/learn/t...iAAEgJ5JfD_BwE

 

Join Date: Mar 2022
Location: Western Australia
Posts: 2
Maybe it time to go eat a Vegemite sandwich... and look at a calendar it is the year 2022!
Men At Work - Land Down Under (MUSIC VIDEO) - Bing video

 

I wouldn't want to include the spare in the rotation pattern as you would be starting with a brand new tire at the the first rotation so it wouldn't be the same tread depth as the other 3 tires(and will stay that way). I have a full sized spare - on the actual fancy alloy wheel no less- on my '20 Frontier. I'm just doing front to back rotations every 7k miles. The spare stays where it is until needed.

 

Wow, someone paying more attention to a marketers advertising blurbs than tire engineers. Radial tires will seat in on one side. That doesn't mean they can't be put on the other side, but they will be working the belts in a reverse motion than they seated in at. It's like seating the lifters on a new camshaft or new wheel bearings into a fresh bearing race. You can take lifters out then out them back, possibly into a different bore, but it will wear them out much faster. You can put new bearings in an old bearing race, but they will be forced into the old bearing pattern. Michelin invented the radial tire in 1949 and it was one of their engineers that told me about the radial belts and premature wear.

 

In Australia it has been common practice forever to introduce the new spare when it is time, to put on the front of the vehicle together with a matching new one of the same brand and tread.
The remaining three are perused to find the worst and that is put in the spare bay as the spare wheel.
The other two are put of the rear of the car.
In a lifetime of driving, I have never had a puncture or blowout on the front of any vehicle because of this management, but a few over the years on one at the back. From memory always on the edge of the road side where the tire often runs over the shoulder of the road.
Bugger worrying about tread biases, new tires are new tires and I have never given that a thought.
In the great South Land using this philosophy we then enjoy the use of five tires purchased with the new car and not four like most Asian manufacturers.
What amazes me is that if the car was sold with four skinny space saver wheels, the authorities would not certify the vehicles as suitable for sale in Australia.
But I can be five hundred kilometres in the outback and have to put one of these spare 'illegal' wheels on to get me back and that is OK.
I believe that if the authorities can't protect us from this criminal marketing then the people should boycott any cars with 'space saver spare wheels. Don't buy them.