Spacesaver wheels

[weejock]

Getting ready for next weeks trip I was giving the van and car a bit of a checkover. After checking the caravan spare my mind was drawn back to this topic and I was wondering how long it will be before some caravan manufacturer in an attempt to save weight and do away with the alko spare wheel carrier decides to adopt these things. I normally run within a few kilos of maximum load so if another 10kg was liberated I do suppose it would make a bit of difference.

Mind you imagine the scenario where you have a puncture on the van and the car. Not only would it look comical with 2 space savers but where on earth would I then stow a full size van wheel as well as a 20 inch car wheel.

 

[WatsonJohnG]

There used to be an adapter plate that enabled the car spare to be used on the caravan before the advent of bigger car wheels
It would be so easy if you could do that and just carry a metal adapter freeing up a lot of weight allowance on the caravan
It could get you to a garage
But.....
Its been said before

 

[PaulN]

Having heard problems like this before when we took delivery of our merc e-classs last year I tried hard to get a definitive answer from MB. Eventually 2 days before leaving for france we had written confirmation that the e class wheel is suitable for towing - BUT onlly up to the normal limit which is 50 mile 50 mph. Having seen the MB space saver I can quite see why - It only has enough tread to do 50 miles before being illegal. In the mean time we chose to get a full size wheel and tyre. We were etternally grateful as just outside Toulouse we picked up a bolt in the near side rear tyre. Fortunatrly we only had another 100 miles to do that day having done the bulk of the drive the day before.

 

[anotherDavid]

Having heard problems like this before when we took delivery of our merc e-classs last year I tried hard to get a definitive answer from MB. Eventually 2 days before leaving for france we had written confirmation that the e class wheel is suitable for towing - BUT onlly up to the normal limit which is 50 mile 50 mph. Having seen the MB space saver I can quite see why - It only has enough tread to do 50 miles before being illegal. In the mean time we chose to get a full size wheel and tyre. We were etternally grateful as just outside Toulouse we picked up a bolt in the near side rear tyre. Fortunatrly we only had another 100 miles to do that day having done the bulk of the drive the day before.

Is yours an estate? . I have wondered about getting a full size tyre but it would use up a lot of room in the boot so am still thinking about it . I think you are a bit pessemistic about the tread on the spacesaver though, my normal tyres have done 40k miles on the front and dont seem to have worn down any more in the last 10k miles

 

[RayS]

I've just suffered a front offside puncture but managed to get home by re-inflating once or twice over the few miles home - car was full, van on the back, midnight, raining.
Happily the casing had been declared repairable - a nice clean small hole - but I shall keep this one for spare. I have tried the full size wheel in the space normally occupied by the space saver spare supplied and found it will just fit, abeit projecting upwards a millimetre or two above the normal line of the boot floor. So buying a new full size rim and able to take a 'proper' spare on long stay trips etc. - very comforting. The particular car is MB E series saloon W211 variant.
It may be worth checking whether a full size wheel will fit in the space rather than assuming that because a space saver is supplied that it won't.