Wheels?

kilasser

Forgive me if I sound really stupid. One of my front tyres needs replacing soon. Funds are low as getting married next month.

The car is an 05 Focus. I had a look at the spare and it’s a brand new tyre. What I’m thinking of doing is replacing the worn one with the spare and keeping the worn one as a spare. Now my question is will this be ok. The spare has got a weight on it so I assume is balanced?? So is it a case of swapping them myself and all will be fine or is there balancing or alignment or any thing else to be done.

Any help would be great.

yayamark

kilasser wrote:

Forgive me if I sound really stupid. One of my front tyres needs replacing soon. Funds are low as getting married next month.

The car is an 05 Focus. I had a look at the spare and it’s a brand new tyre. What I’m thinking of doing is replacing the worn one with the spare and keeping the worn one as a spare. Now my question is will this be ok. The spare has got a weight on it so I assume is balanced?? So is it a case of swapping them myself and all will be fine or is there balancing or alignment or any thing else to be done.

Any help would be great.

oh god love your soon to be widow!

Change the worn one for a NEW one and keep the spare spare you tight mayo ****.

Why would you go cheap on something that keep u stuck to the road.

Actually good advice woul be to change the worn and whatever is accross the axle but that might put a stop to the honeymoon in donegal?

I actually mean this as good advice but with all the road carnage on the roads for u to get injured or god knows what else over a worn tyre is pretty stuoid dont u think?

_Kaiser_

I see your point yayamark, but there's no need for abusing the OP in fairness.
Not everyone can afford €100+ at the drop of a hat, especially if they're just about to get married, or maybe the OP gets paid monthly and that's 2 weeks away yet, etc.

Anyway OP... the spare in my Passat is identical to the rest so when my front left tyre went flat, I just swapped them (actually the nice AA man did as whoever changed the tyre last obviously used one of those impact wrenches cause the nuts may as well have been glued on!) and things were fine for the next week or two. I wouldn't advise this with one of those smaller "space-saving" wheels though!

I did get the flat tyre replaced (wasn't fixable unfortunately - bloody pothole in Meath) and balanced as soon as I could though and swapped them back around. I'd recommend you do the same.

Btw.. good luck with the wedding

optiplexgx270

Isn't the spair a space saver? If it is then erm no dont bother you can pick up a piece of crap type for just over €60. Not a lot really.

bazz26

I would replace the bald tyre with the spare one. I would then buy a budget tyre and put it in the boot to replace the spare.

A bald tyre imo will do you no favours on the car or in the boot as a spare.

maidhc

bazz26 wrote:

I would replace the bald tyre with the spare one. I would then buy a budget tyre and put it in the boot to replace the spare.

A bald tyre imo will do you no favours on the car or in the boot as a spare.

Surely a bald tyre is at least as safe as a deflated run flat or a space saver!

But still, a budget tyre for a focus is a pretty cheap affair.

peasant

If the spare is a full tyre, same as the ones already on the car, there is absolutely no issue with using it.
It's a 05 car, so the tyre is only two years old and perfectly serviceable.

Nothing wrong with this at all.

What makes me wonder is the fact that only one front tyre is worn badly and the other one is still alright ...sounds like tracking/wheel alignment could be out as well ...or maybe the other tyre was replaced at some stage earlier.

Keeping the baldy as a spare is no problem either as long as it isn't showing any thread yet and as long as you don't intend on driving it any further than to the next tyre place in case you do have to use it.

What I would do in your place, once funds are healthier again is buy another (matching) new tyre for the front so that you have the same thread depth on both sides and use the slightly better old front tyre as a spare and throw away the baldy.

bazz26

maidhc wrote:

Surely a bald tyre is at least as safe as a deflated run flat or a space saver!

As a space saver still would have a decent thread so I would assume it would have better grip than a bald regular tyre with no thread left at all.

Most manufacturers recommend not going above 50mph with a space saver and drive no further than around 100 mile range on it to get you to a garage afaik. Surely within these limits it is still a safer bet than a bald regular tyre.

sesswhat

bazz26 wrote:

As a space saver still would have a decent thread so I would assume it would have better grip than a bald regular tyre with no thread left at all.

Most manufacturers recommend not going above 50mph with a space saver and drive no further than around 100 mile range on it to get you to a garage afaik. Surely within these limits it is still a safer bet than a bald regular tyre.

Depends on the conditions. Threaded tyres are for a worst case scenario. Ideally we should all be driving without thread on dry roads, but then we don't all have tyre crews to follow us around for whenever it rains.

peasant

sesswhat wrote:

Depends on the conditions. Threaded tyres are for a worst case scenario. Ideally we should all be driving without thread on dry roads, but then we don't all have tyre crews to follow us around for whenever it rains.

Don't be giving people ideas now !

A "slick" racing tyre is an altogether different animal from a bald normal tyre and in no way comparable.

A regular bald tyre is just useless and dangerous ...not "better" on dry roads

barryfitz

peasant wrote:

A "slick" racing tyre is an altogether different animal from a bald normal tyre and in no way comparable.

A regular bald tyre is just useless and dangerous ...not "better" on dry roads

How so? The principals are the same surely. Maximim contact = better grip (on dry roads)

sesswhat

peasant wrote:

Don't be giving people ideas now !

A "slick" racing tyre is an altogether different animal from a bald normal tyre and in no way comparable.

A regular bald tyre is just useless and dangerous ...not "better" on dry roads

I was answering Bazz26's point about grip as a lot of people equate more thread with more grip whereas the opposite is true on a smooth dry road.

If you had to do the hypothetical hospital dash, would you rather be on a set of new 145 wide space-savers or 205 wide worn tyres that were just the wrong side of legal?

Bazz26's original theory was

a space saver still would have a decent thread so I would assume it would have better grip than a bald regular tyre with no thread left at all

which would not be true in dry conditions. The bald regular tyre might be faulty in other ways but it would still have much more grip, which is why it was standard fodder for low-budget rally teams (in my day at least )

Incidentally, far from being useless and dangerous, regular lorry tyres that have worn bald can often be re-cut to use again, provided there is enough thickness of rubber left.

peasant

barryfitz wrote:

How so? The principals are the same surely. Maximim contact = better grip (on dry roads)

In theory, yes ...in practice it's different.

Proper racing slicks are made of much softer rubber compound, thats why they grip so very well and last only for a few rounds round the track.

A normal road tyre has to last much, much longer and is therefore made from much harder rubber. It's the threads in it that actually make it plyable enough to give good adhesion on a dry road. If it was 8-10 mm of unthreaded rubber you'd be flying off the road before you know it.

Typical Irish roads with their very rough surface are a bit different, but on shiny tarmac an unthreaded road tyre would have next to no adhesion at all.

The threads have other functions as well of course ...dispersing water being the most important.

kilasser

Right the spare is full size and has the same Michelin tyre on it as the rest. The tyre on the other side of the axel was replaced six months ago with a new tyre as it got a puncture that could not be repaired. Theirs just about two mm of tread left on the one I want to change.

I think ill get a budget tyre for a spare and use the Michelin in the boot on the car.

Thanks for the suggestions. I know that the tyres are one of the most important parts of the car as far as safety goes and should I should not cut corners. But i thought thers a brand new tyre in the boot and a just legal one on the car so swap them and If a need the spare its legal and will get me home or to a garage.

(Or to the church on time:D )

kilasser

All sorted out today at my local tyre center. E25 for the budget tyre thats now in the boot and the Michelin on the car.