Motoring: No spare wheel, what emergency puncture kit, or even bother?

Hey guys, can anyone recommend an emergency repair puncture kit for our car?
There are a few about for sale such as the:

Slime 1-2-go.
Continental Mobility Comfort.

But I cannot find any real life reviews of either.

I understand that they are not intended for a permanent fix but I need one for the piece of mind and to hopefully give me a fighting chance of getting to the nearest tire shop if I do get a flat..

Any views, experiences or opinions.?

Cheers!

Personally, I wouldn’t be without a spare wheel.

Imagine being in the middle of nowhere and the slime or whatever not working.

What car is it for and is there anywhere in the boot to put a spare wheel ?

The Smart Fortwo doesn’t have a spare wheel. You’d require two anyway, as front and rear wheels are different sizes. So there’d be no room in the boot!

therein lies a good reason not to buy a fortwo 😉

parents have a car with no spare …. the one and only puncture they had which was an object through the sidewall would not seal……

guess who bought a spare soon after….

personally i keep both in the car…. Wife is to use the sealant spray first – if that works to get her home life is good.

i dont want her pissing about with a widow maker scissor jack at the side of the road if she doesnt have to .

as for simply calling the AA. enjoy A. the wait and B the walk when you dont have a phone signal.

There is plenty of room in the rear.. But unfortunately taken up up with toddler/baby paraphernalia. And yes the rear/front are different sizes too.

It seems to the norm now to either rely on either breakdown cover or an emergency repair or horrid/expensive runflat tyres.

This is not my first car without a spare, My numerous 2 seater’s in the past have not had one.

Most of the emergency sealant stuff are purely a get you home/garage fix and will need a tyre replacement or repair. From what I hear most places won’t repair them due to the mess it makes so only a replacement is an option.

There are some that have more permanent claims, and are aimed at adding to tyres to seal punctures as they happen. And as it happens I was recommended Puncture Safe the other day after having a screw through my tyre.

Tried this stuff out and so far the tyre is holding, and the claim is it should be a permanent fix if it holds, and good for high speeds. Also stresses that if it doesn’t that’s fine, just it will deflate slowly and safely. i.e. won’t hide major damage.

That said, a spare would be nice, but I need the space.

Alternatively, run flat tyres perhaps? I have no experience of them, but I get the impression they hold shape in a puncture enough to get somewhere to fix it. i.e. won’t end up running on the rim.

I don’t have a spare. Car came with sealant and a compressor. I have added a sticky worm kit which I have been unfortunate enough to use on motorcycle and car tyres a few times with 100% success so far (in fact I have left them in place for the remaining life of the tyre) The kit is way bigger than my bicycle tyre kits

I have sealant and a compressor in mine, no space for spare (S-max, so the boot floor has the fold out +2 seats in it)

Only time I’ve ‘used’ it was in a car park and I didn’t realise tyre was flat so as I pulled away I went a few yards on the flat tyre which was enough to unseat the bead. Then the compressor with the kit couldn’t get the air in fast enough to reseat the bead so I had to call my breakdown people. He had a big compressor in the van as it’s surprisingly common nowadays and got it reseated no time but only enough for me to be able to get to a garage and get a new tyre; as above no-one wanted to touch it with the sealant in.

I’d prefer having a spare as a consequence, but also be cautious that an untethered wheel and tyre bouncing around in the event of a shunt could be far more of an issue than waiting for the breakdown service in the event of a puncture.

There are many cars with no spare fitted, instead there’s a flat-kit, electric pump and sealant, in fact my experience is that is unusual to actually find a spare fitted, and some are so horribly placed I can’t imagine anyone using it, because you have to get underneath the rear of the vehicle to release the spare from the carrier!
Even when it’s fitted into the boot well, it means having to struggle with a scissor-jack, a weedy little brace and crank to raise a car weighing over a ton, undo the nuts and get a wheel off, then fit the spare, in cold and wet conditions, possibly in the dark, by the side of a busy dual-carriageway or motorway.
Run-flats are ok, but can make for a very harsh, noisy ride, BMW’s are prone to this on some more sports oriented models, like some 4-series.

I’d prefer having a spare as a consequence, but also be cautious that an untethered wheel and tyre bouncing around in the event of a shunt could be far more of an issue than waiting for the breakdown service in the event of a puncture.

I’ve yet to see any car with a spare where it’s unteathered, they’re always held in place by a circular plastic cone and a nut and captive bolt that holds it securely, or else they’re held in a cage underneath the rear of the vehicle, usually vans and some large 4×4’s.
It’s part of my job to check for a spare or inflation kit on every car I drive each day, usually three different vehicles.

I’ve yet to see any car with a spare where it’s unteathered,

was aimed at people who might think of getting a spare to put in the boot rather than rely on the crappy puncture repair kit

eg:

parents have a car with no spare …. the one and only puncture they had which was an object through the sidewall would not seal……

guess who bought a spare soon after….

personally i keep both in the car…. Wife is to use the sealant spray first – if that works to get her home life is good.

I wouldn’t be happy with that myself, YMMV

A lot of manufacturers done away with the spare wheel as its easy weight loss and helps with some testing where low weight is an advantage. Our company cars have them removed if they come as standard as apparently it’s too dangerous to change wheels. Need to phone the rescue people instead. OK if your in a built up area, pants if you are far away somewhere remote for a weekend.

no rescue service i saw would deal with you if you had no spare* – mine has an LPG tank where it went

* you could have the spray stuff but in my experience all that does is ruin a tyre and leave you with a puncture.

Put a space saver in and it does not move about as its pretty heavy

Most cars that have a spare, only have a spacesaver spare, so you still have to sort it out even when changed. Plus, they have a limited speed and distance, so are not that much better than sealant and a compressor. Most people wouldn’t know how to use the jack, undo the bolts, find the locking wheel nut etc, etc anyway, given most people don’t realise you have to check tyre pressure yourself and not just when the car is serviced by a garage ;-

speed is 80 km distance is 200 km and it will work for certain I would say it is considerably better – I can change a tyre mind.

no rescue service i saw would deal with you if you had no spare

The terms & conditions for Britannia Rescue said they wouldn’t help if you didn’t have a spare, but having a Smart ForTwo I clarified with them; if the car is sold with a spare as standard equipment, and you don’t have it, they won’t help you, but if it doesn’t come with a spare, they will. I don’t know what other Rescue services say.

Jeez- I never considered this before this thread came along. Interesting stuff. Not sure I’d be happy without a spare of some description. Using sealant sounds like more of a nightmare. I’m Happy that the punctures I’ve had to change to date have all been happily resolved with a spare. Apart from that one time I attended a damsel in distress who had the same car… she’d got the wheel nuts off but rim was seized on. Couldn’t shift it. Left her after 10 minutes of trying. Probably dead now. Didn’t realise it was common practice to find modern cars without spares. Seems madness.

eg:

parents have a car with no spare …. the one and only puncture they had which was an object through the sidewall would not seal……
guess who bought a spare soon after….

personally i keep both in the car…. Wife is to use the sealant spray first – if that works to get her home life is good.

I wouldn’t be happy with that myself, YMMV

your post makes ZERO sense thanks to pretty crappy quoting.

also to junkyard – just because a space saver is heavy doesnt mean it wont move……

if your in a crash all that happens is that your heavy object becomes a heavy missile.

Our company cars have them removed if they come as standard as apparently it’s too dangerous to change wheels.

Hmm some over the top H&S people there!

I have been told I have to wait for the AA or whatever too but if I’m not on the motorway and can pull off the road ok I’m changing it myself!!! Not waiting for an hour for a job I can do in 5 minutes. My wife can do it too as her dad made her practice.

Most of the punctures I’ve had I have found when getting the car going in the morning (must have gone down overnight), not calling out the AA for a puncture on my own driveway!!

Hmm some over the top H&S people there!

You would think so but believe it or not it didnt come from the H&S people! They actually think its absurd. I believe it came from insurance and/or legal team as an incident where a wheel came off a vehicle at speed was quite costly as it caused a fair bit of damage to other parties. The person driving the vehicle had changed the wheel shortly beforehand.

no rescue service i saw would deal with you if you had no spare

There is a compressor and a canister of sealant in place of spare wheel.

Let me expand then trail_rat

I said my experience with a repair kit was crap and I’d prefer a spare, but because of my car that wasn’t an option and I wouldn’t be happy with an untethered spare in my car.

Count zero said he’d yet to find a car where a spare isn’t fixed down.

I said I was responding more to other posters (you) who had bought wheels to go in your cars. And quoted your two examples.

Make sense now?

Not having a go, I don’t even know if you have them somehow fixed down, apologies if that’s your interpretation, just saying that i wouldn’t be happy. As indeed I did 2 years ago.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/full-size-spare-wheel-vs-space-saver-vs-repair-kit

Surely the mobility company can be called out to fix a puncture?

Ah ok makes more sense.my bad Did wonder why giving my wife the option of both but saying to use the foam first for safety would not be a good solution

Our family car has no spare and unfortunately the two recent punctures have both been side wall blow outs… Resulting in an annoying wait for the recovery van. Personally, I would like (at the very least) a space saver.

My Cooper S only has sealant/compressor, no where to have a spare tyre so no real choice, never had to use it yet but i have made sure i have breakdown cover. Helped a stranded lady who couldn’t work out how to use her sealant/compressor, worked quite well, certainly enough to get her a local tyre fitters.

No worries, just don’t like the idea of spare wheels bouncing around.
Of course, you could say the same about my dirtworker full of water on the way to a ride, or even a few tins of beans suddenly being shunted forward at speed but ‘most’ of the time they wouldn’t be in there. I think it comes from an old road safety film watching the dummies with no seatbelts in the back seats hitting the front passengers ‘with the force of a baby elephant’ IIRC.

Did wonder why giving my wife the option of both but saying to use the foam first for safety would not be a good solution

Tricky one that; on one hand it is the faster solution if it works but might make a tyre ‘unrepairable’ (I couldn’t find anyone willing to do it once sealant was in) and might not work anyway. OTOH, changing a wheel on a roadside isn’t a pleasant experience. I guess in the end it’s not really that tricky having written that down now, the cost of a new tyre or pair vs – well – how bad do you want to think? I’d go with the sealant first but I’d possibly still call the breakdown people before that if needs be.

Oddly never had an issue getting mine replaired with tire weld in. I use a local small garage rather than the upselling chains.

But tbh I’d rather pay for a pair of tires than have the wife fighting with a scissor jack at the road side.

Spare tire in her car is fitted to a frame hanging under the boot floor and the jack etc are fixed into the cubby hole on the rear quarter behind the panel. – it was an optional extra.

A decent telescopic wheel brace is a tenner. An occasional use foot pump less than that. Our cars have always had some kind of spare (and I don’t see why a Smart can’t run a spacesaver – they are never the same size as the original wheel anyway).

Admittedly I’ve not had to do it on the motorway, but it has never taken more than 15 mins to get mobile after a puncture. And my last two occasions involving puncture repairs were £5 each (tyre not wrecked by goo and minimal faff for the garage as already removed from the car).

So the general feeling is:

Get a compressor and gunk, if that fails (which is likely) then rely on breakdown cover.
Space saver would be great, but nowhere to sensibly store and secure it.

Some great experiences and comments here guys, always helpful!!

i have a spare but no jack.. far as I know

Every time I’m tried to remove a wheel its been seized solid anyways

Esme – Member

The Smart Fortwo doesn’t have a spare wheel. You’d require two anyway, as front and rear wheels are different sizes.

The Honda S2000 has different size wheels front to back and comes with a space saver.
IIRC, the LSD can’t cope with the spare, so if you have a puncture on the rear you need to take a good tyre off the front to put on the back and then the space saver on the front. 😯

In my old car (Mazda 3) there is no spare, just a compressor and sealant. I used the sealant once and, rather than replace it, just keep a couple of cans of Holts Tyreweld in the boot.

In my other car I have a space saver spare.

Either way you’re going to have to trust a flaky scissor jack by the side of the road (assuming you know where the jacking points are or can get it under something solid and still work it).

deadkenny, if that puncturesafe is the same as https://www.puncturesafe.com/puncturesafe-FAQ’s.php I would not consider it a permanent repair.

In the FAQs their answer is ‘yes and no!’. They also say its not water soluble and prevents rust in the steel belt…on the face of it this seems rubbish. They even suggest it can sometimes repair sidewall punctures…that a tyre with a damaged sidewall would experience a ‘controlled deflation’ and then go on to mention it has sealed tyres with multiple bullet holes in the sidewalls allowing long distances to be driven!

You get a screw in the tyre, its going to seal the leak inside the tyre, and water will get forced into the puncture and rust the belt. Or the object comes out and the tyre seals…again, how do they know its going to seal right through the belt to the tread. It could easily seal on the surface and leave a hole.

I kept the best tyre off our car in case we had a puncture and I wanted to order a matching winter tyre rather than pay top dollar for one off the shelf. After a few months I noticed it had a screw through it, took it out and the belt was rusty inside. For this reason I threw it away.

The website is horrendous and has got 20 year old clips from telly.

Oh yeh, I was going to suggest getting some ‘Plug and Go’ tyre plugs…you just screw them into the puncture and then snap off the head. So you might get away without filling your tyre with sealant, or give the sealant a fighting chance of sealing a larger hole. Short term repair, obviously 🙂