Haven’t really thought about….never needed to use it
But my spare tyre in now 12 years old
Does anybody change the spare at 5years or 10 years
It looks ok….not been exposed to sun etc
But looks can be deceptive

Is it probably still ok to use if i had to replace a flat to get me home / to a tyre place?

I'm sure a lot of spares are as old as the car.

I'm conservative with tyres, so for me, I'd say it should get you home etc. and I'd treat it the same as a space saver (50 miles at 50mph), though it will likely be OK for more,

I can see the temptation to keep it when it's a new tyre. What I do is have a used spare & rotate it when I get new tyres - keep the best of the old 4 as the spare and the old spare goes with the other 3 off the car.

i agree with Alistair re using it as a get you home [with care] spare... ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
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Get rid of it and buy a full sized matching wheel and tyre. The space saver won't get you very far or do it very fast so unless you are close to home you will be forced to drive to the nearest tyre fitter and hope they have a matching tyre in stock or buy something cheap to get you on your way all of which can be a major PITA. All this assumes you have a major tyre failure and not a simple nail puncture that can be easily repaired with a DIY kit. 2012 TDV8 Vogue (L322)

rambles post refers to a full size tyre?? and not a 'space saver' ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
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 2012 TDV8 Vogue (L322)

I do the same as Alistair, use it and keep the another as a spare

Yep I use mine as Alistair, well I used to. I've now got 4 spanking new tyres on 22" style 706 wheels, a genuine 22" turbine as spare and 4 more 22" genuine turbines cluttering up the place (according to SWMBO). Must have a clear out. Back on topic daughters car had cracked tyres on car resulteing in MOT advisory's- maybe should have been a fail. Obviously the spare is not relevant/checked. Geoff

When I had my L322 I replaced all 5 tyres (I had a matching alloy spare) with new and rotated them all periodically.
IMHO the best way if funds allow & replacements required at the same time.

I expect it will not be long before tyre age is an MOT testable item.

@Sam: Tyre age is an MOT test requirement for some passenger vehicles already:

Source: UK GOV Website.

“Tyre age
The check of tyre age applies to all vehicles with more than 8 passenger seats, other than vehicles of historical interest.

Tyre age is determined by the date code on the sidewall and will be a three or four-digit code. Tyres with a three-digit code will be more than 10 years old.

The code is usually located in a ‘window’ on the sidewall and may or may not be located at the end of the DOT number (see image below).

example image of a date code on a tyre sidewall

The first two digits of the code represent the week of manufacture of the tyre and the second two digits represent the year of manufacture. In the example above, the tyre was manufactured in week 35 of 2016.

Tyres over ten years old at the time of test must be failed if they are on:

any front steered axle
any rear axle of a minibus with a single wheel fitment.
Tyres not displaying a date code must also be failed. However, date codes are only required to be marked on one side of the tyre so it may not be possible to see the date code on twin wheel fitments. Under these circumstances you should advise the presenter and assume the date code is present and the tyre age is acceptable.

On tyres where the date code is illegible, for example, due to kerbing or deliberate tampering, a major or minor defect must be recorded, depending on the location of the tyre.

Retreaded tyres
Remoulded/retreaded tyres may have two date codes. One being the original code and the other being the date of retreading. In this case the most recent date code must be used.

example image of a date code on a remoulded tyre

The appearance of the date code on retreaded tyres may be different from the original date code and may be branded rather than moulded.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” -where’s the fun in that?

That's interesting Gremlin & thanks for posting the details.

So, it's probably only a matter of time before it cascades down.

I change from summers to winters so at the moment have the summers on and a winter as a spare and in winter the opposite seems to work for me

The thing that kills tyres is UV. I'd actually be more inclined to leave a totally unused ten year old tyre in the boot than leave a part worn in there for less time. From the factory tyres come with UV inhibitors and oils on the surface that help protect them. Using them gets rid of this protection which leads them to degrade. That said you could easily spray a used tyre after thorough cleaning with something like 303 Aerospace which will help keep the rubber supple. I've got a set of old 18" wheels from the Impreza which haven't been used in about 5 years and have 2017 date coded tyres, and got used a fair but but are still at 4mm. When I took them off they were still nice and soft but time has led to significant hardening of them. In contrast the identical brand new spare is still nice and soft.

Ennoch wrote:

The thing that kills tyres is UV.

Basically, yeah. It'll still age but I really wouldn't be concerned with an old but unused tyre because the tyre still has its protectants on them. And even a used one will still be in better shape than one that's spent the same time outside, under load, heat cycles etc. If a tyre doesn't feel like it's made of plastic and isn't cracked it'll be perfectly sufficient for a spare. There are ways for tyres to become damaged invisibly, but the reality is that they're designed to last a good amount of time in fairly bad conditions. We also don't get the same level of UV in this country as say an alpine village, or the heat of a greek summer, so they just get less abuse than in many parts of the world.