OK, first a mild rant at any Muppet that thinks a tub of latex and a pathetic pump is any replacement for a spare wheel. I hope all your runflats run flat at once, you *#*%&#*!!

Right, so after losing all my man points and having to call out a man because my sealant failed to achieve its one purpose in life, he fixed it temporarily with a tubeless repair anchovy and a big f’off compressor. The hole’s right in the middle of the tread, nowhere near the sidewall. There’s still 5mm of tread. But he’s advised that I need to get it to a tyre place and they won’t be able to repair it because the latex messes up the repair process.

Is this right? Am I really in for £200 for a new pair of tyres because some dick at ford thought this space saving idea was good one?

Don’t blame Ford, all car manufacturers do it to save weight so they can save fuel to meet regs, oh & most offer a full size spare as cost option, so blame the idiot that didn’t spec it 😉

I would of thought its repairable, it’s in the centre 3/4’s, they normally buzz the area with a pneumatic sander and apply glue. Surely any latex will be removed by this process..

Run flats aren’t generally repairable wherever the damage is. If your sealant didn’t plug it do you really want to be driving round with a weakened tyre?
Oh and why buy 2 if the other is 5mm?
Unless your car is 4×4 or your not buying a spare?

All the latex will need cleaned out. Too much faff for a garage to bother with.

Some of us don’t even have a spare wheel well, even if we did buy an extra wheel. Some eejit ran the exhausts through there instead…

Seems from googling that some places have a policy of not repairing. Anyone with experience of who will?

simple cure to this – don’t buy a car like this!!

Helpful, thanks. I’ll set fire to it tonight, claim on the insurance and save the hassle.

Your over that way, I believe, but your best option is Bracknell Tyres, near the tip.

Had a puncture that the other half didn’t notice for a bit so driving on it destroyed the tyre past the point of even attempting to use the foam cr%p. Luckily local so borrowed the spare from a friends car for a bit.

Have since gone and bought a space saver kit:
http://www.fordpartsuk.com/shop/ford_c-max_16_space_saver_spare_wheel_kit_f_1827860_c_963.htm
Needs a tyre so about £130 in total.

It’s fixable, take it to a cheap backstreet tyre shop. It should cost about £15!

Tried 5, from the major chains to the backstreet guys. Got a variety of answers from the expected ‘once it’s had latex in, it eats the tyre compound, it’s only for emergencies’ (bad news all you people running tubeless, YOU’RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE!!!!) to ‘Yes, they are repairable but yours isn’t because of the shape of the hole’ – which might be true but sounded much like not being arsed to do it for £15 when they can see two new tyres cha-ching!!

I even phoned Continental tech service (as it’s their branded latex that Ford use) and they absolutely refuted that it damages the tyres, but then equally told me it’s at the tyre fitter’s discretion whether a repair can be attempted or not and that most would find some way of avoiding it.

So realising I could spend the rest of my life driving round or phoning tyre repair places, finally the bullet has been bitten and it’s cost me best part of £200 for two new tyres to replace two that in fairness once they were off the car, were more worn than I’d given credit to. So probably a couple of ‘000 miles early, but going into winter and with potentially a bad one forecast, not a disaster.

HOWEVER; after this experience I’m reluctant to buy another latex repair pot in case it chuffs up the chance to repair another tyre, and I’ll be making steps to acquire a spare and a minijack in due course. Scrappies?

The big chains wil have been instructed by Management to reject tyres fixed with latex and sell you a new one. Take it to a decent independent tyre place and they will grumpily wash out the latex, prepare and ream out the hole then glue in one of the mushroom patch thingies and send you on your way.

Ainsworth Road Tyres if you’re lucky enough to be near Radcliffe, Greater Manchester. Chris and Hedley; the best.

Now dump that stupid latex kit and get on Ebay to buy a spare and jack kit to fit in the wheel well, then get a steel wheel from a scrappie and put a tyre on it. We keep one of the winter wheels in Mrs Gti’s car in summer and a summer wheel in winter.

I put a mushroom plug in one of mine that was similiar, cleaning the latex was very easy and tbh, it’s not brain surgery- the air pressure holds the plug in place anyway, it needs to be airtight and held in but that’s about it.

I dunno, personally I apply the “same failure again” logic- if the anchovy fails, which is not very likely ime, you’ll get back pretty much the puncture you already had- the anchovy’s not made of dynamite. Decide how bad that is and proceed accordingly. Personally I reckon I’d be leaving it as it is but ymm(l)v.

mconnichies in arbroath didnt seem to care that id put latex in my wheels to seal up porous VW rims….

wheel off – they stuck on some paint on the rims so i didnt need to latex it again and fixed the puncture – tire back on . job done.

It’s gone beyond that point now, as above I bit the bullet and got two new tyres

So realising I could spend the rest of my life driving round or phoning tyre repair places, finally the bullet has been bitten and it’s cost me best part of £200 for two new tyres to replace two that in fairness once they were off the car, were more worn than I’d given credit to. So probably a couple of ‘000 miles early, but going into winter and with potentially a bad one forecast, not a disaster.

But I’ll be damned if I want to go the latex route again, if it gets me just back to a ‘can’t repair that, latex eats tyres!’ circle again.

Hence – I guess a scrapyard for a spare.

Also been googling. For those of you that carry a spare (Globalti for example) – how do you fix it down – I wouldn’t want a 20kg wheel and tyre bouncing around inside the car in the even of an accident!

i put mine in the spare wheel holder when i got it …..

but since many cars are also doing away with these….its getting silly.

Also been googling. For those of you that carry a spare (Globalti for example) – how do you fix it down – I wouldn’t want a 20kg wheel and tyre bouncing around inside the car in the even of an accident!

Mine spent a long time bungied to the load points on the side of my boot as there was heavy stuff in there and I CBA emptying it out to put the wheel back. Didn’t budge, but I did put it back when I put the seats down.

Luckily Mrs Gti’s Ibiza still has the wheel well. The jack kit in its polystyrene holder just sits inside the wheel and the screw thingy holds it all in place. The jack kit came frm a Polo off Ebay.

Maybe there’s an opportunity here for someone to manufacture a thief-proof spare wheel carrier in the Land Rover style? That would shame the penny-pinching manufacturers into giving us back the spare.

My Passat B7 has a full size alloy spare.

I am lucky enough to have a spare wheel in my car( a £100 optional extra) As an ex-demo car, I was told that the dealership always order spare wheels on their own cars-says something for their faith in the goo and pump.

However, whilst it is a 205/55 R16 V rated Continental tyre on a steel wheel with a rolling radius within 0.8% of the standard fit 18’s, it still has an enormous yellow sticker on it saying that it must be used for no more than 50 miles at 50mph because it will be different to the other 3 tyres.
I realise that this would be much preferable to the OP’s experience but is would be no good if you got an puncture in the middle of the night in the wilds of Scotland and needed to get home.

“I realise that this would be much preferable to the OP’s experience but is would be no good if you got an puncture in the middle of the night in the wilds of Scotland and needed to get home.”

but it would get you home and i wouldn’t worry in the slightest about doing it and would feel better about doing it than the goo…..

tubeless repair anchovy

I use those and just leave them until the tyre is worn out. That’s on cars and motorcycles. I know it isn’t recommended but I’m mean and reckless.

I realise that this would be much preferable to the OP’s experience but is would be no good if you got an puncture in the middle of the night in the wilds of Scotland and needed to get home.

why, how fast do you go in the middle of the night down those single, er, track roads? 😉

but yeah, for the 4am motorway sprint (which i always do at exactly 70mph your honour), would be a bit frustrating…

Yeah – it’s a pretty sorry state of affairs having no spare tyre.

Although saying that…..I’ve had my Ibiza for over 8 years and the spare tyre has never been fitted or used. I don’t think the previous owner used it either given it’s box fresh appearance, so that’s 248k miles over 11yrs without needing to use a spare. So, you could argue it’s not really a necessity? Dunno.
Just replaced a tyre that had a screw in it (right on the shoulder so not repairable), but that wasn’t going down very fast so just got it replaced asap.

My wife’s 12 plate Ibiza comes with a full size spare, which surprised me. It’s in a poloystyrene insert inside the boot, which raises the boot floor, rather than in a well in the floorpan.

One tip, is to carry a pair of latex gloves in with the jack and the wheel; it’s quite a messy business changing the tyre. I think I’ve also got an old MBR freebie rain poncho in there too!

why, how fast do you go in the middle of the night down those single, er, track roads?

Its the distance not the speed that would be the issue.
I would of course just get on with it, but I mentioned it as I think they do it to get over legal issues?
Edit:
Don’t get me wrong, I am dead chuffed that it has a spare, indeed would have insisted that they fit one as part of the deal if there hadn’t been one.

can you explain what the issue is – besides “sticker says no”

my car has a spare – it’s hidden under the rear and uses a sort of internal screw-driven cable to hold it up against the underside. Takes most of a day to get it out and definitely involves lying on your back under the rear of the car.

… in pissing rain at the side of a motorway I expect. I’m tempted to take it out & secure it in the boot.

can you explain what the issue is – besides “sticker says no”

The official issue is that as the tyre has a different size and tread pattern than the standard fit tyres- even those are also Contis- it is ‘advised’ that you must not have odd tyres on the same axle hence the speed and range restriction, which is also true of the skinny space saver wheels and tyres which are often very different is diameter and width.

This is the AA’s advice:

You must always make sure that tyres on the same axle are of the same size and aspect ratio – your car will fail the MOT test if they’re not – but the law makes an exception for temporary use spare wheels fitted in an emergency.

Personally I would not worry about using the spare I have for longer than reccomended in the situation described above, but I would change it back to a proper tyre as soon as possible.

I have a complete set of spare wheels with quality tyres, but they’re all in the garage- I should put one in the car, if it fits. That’s so incredibly obvious I don’t know why I didn’t do it 2 years ago so, you never know, someone else might not have thought of it- this is like sage advice, only not sage.

Did you keep the good (but worn) tyre? If you did and you have space for a spare then you could have just bought a steel wheel for your car and had it fitted to that.