No spare in a new car.

[Dave Lehnert]

My mom just purchased a new Chevy Malibu 2010, Doing my regular going over everything new I discovered It has no spare tire. They now put in a air pump/ fix a flat sort of device. I asked the Salesman (who was new) and seemed surprised no spare in trunk. Had to go ask about it.
Called parts dept at the dealer and they guy in parts had no idea they did not come with a spare. A spare from a 2009 model is $249 If I had ordered the car to be built, could have got one for $100

Called a large junk yard (very reputable ) and that guy had no idea no spare was offered. Sure enough his inventory showed nothing available.

Did a search on the Net and looks like Ford also does not put one in some models.

Did you buy a new car in the last year or two? Are you sure you have a spare?

[Scott Donley]

I bought a new truck last year and have never looked to see if I had one, just assumed, just went and looked and it has one.

[Wayne Hendrix]

My 2010 RAV4 has one but the Sport model is available without one and makes up for it with run flat tires. It makes me laugh, the people with the spare complain about the appearance of the spare on the tailgate and the people without the spare complain about stiff ride of the run flats.

[Mike Cutler]

Dave

Many new cars are shipping without spares, or they are an option.
If the car has no spare, like my 2007 Mini Cooper S, it usually ships with runflat tires.
The gotcha here is that the sidewall stiffness of a runflat is such that a flat tire will not be apparent by eye. Ergo, the cars also have an onboard TPMS system to let you know that one of your tires is losing, or lost pressure.
Run Flats are pretty $$$, at least for a Mini Cooper, and even though you can drive up to 80 miles on them when completely flat, you would be destroying the tire in the process.
If I had the space for a spare in my Mini, you can believe I'd have a spare. In absensce of that, I have a portable compressor, fix a flat, and a AAA membership.
If the car can hold a spare, I'd put one in, especially since it appears that the Malibu did not ship with runflats. A cheesy compressor and a can of fix a flat is kind of weak for a new car.

[Matt Meiser]

I've never heard of it, but in some ways it makes sense. That's a lot of dead weight to carry around and statistically I'd bet they are very rarely used anymore. Most people couldn't change a tire if they tried, not that they would. Might as well get the 1% or so extra mileage.

[Jason Roehl]

I guarantee you that a bunch of these 5'2" 110-lb soccer moms I see running around in 3/4-ton trucks wouldn't be able to change one of those 8-lug tires with nuts (properly) torqued to 140 ft-lbs. I've had 4-way lug wrenches start to bend on me, and I even changed a couple tires for a little old lady former neighbor of mine (1/2-ton van) on which my 500 ft-lb impact wrench took a while to break loose a couple of the nuts (dang tire stores will let anyone change a tire anymore).

Our '05 Chrysler minivan has a donut spare between and below the front seats, with a lowering mechanism between the seats inside (it's kind of like an oversized router lift...)

[Joel Goodman]

Just got a little 1 series BMW -- no spare --"run flat" tires. But at least it's got a manual transmission! If the tire pressure goes down you get warning lights and its quite a chore to reset them. Apparently it doesn't know what the pressure is but senses the loss of pressure. My was down by 2 pounds and the warning was triggered and after putting air in I had to get the dealer to reset the thing for one of the tires. I think we're at the sad place where no one will be able to do anything but navigate computer displays.
I'd rather have a spare! And a jack! And a wrench!
Sorry for the rant.

[Dan Hintz]

Dave,

Look for states that require a spare by law (such as MD)... when I picked up my 370Z, the spare was $100 but was not optional here.

[Mark Beall]

If you have room for a full size spare, you might want to call up tirerack (www.tirerack.com) and they can probably sell you a mounted tire. I'd call them up anyhow, they might also sell compact spares if that's what you need.

mark

[Chuck Wintle]

My mom just purchased a new Chevy Malibu 2010, Doing my regular going over everything new I discovered It has no spare tire. They now put in a air pump/ fix a flat sort of device. I asked the Salesman (who was new) and seemed surprised no spare in trunk. Had to go ask about it.
Called parts dept at the dealer and they guy in parts had no idea they did not come with a spare. A spare from a 2009 model is $349 If I had ordered the car to be built, could have got one for $100

Called a large junk yard (very reputable ) and that guy had no idea no spare was offered. Sure enough his inventory showed nothing available.

Did a search on the Net and looks like Ford also does not put one in some models.

Did you buy a new car in the last year or two? Are you sure you have a spare?

now I remember why I gave up on GM products! That is absolutely stupid to not provide a real spare.

[Dave Lehnert]

I have to agree to a point about most people not changing a tire themselves.
I have AAA and most likely call and have them do it if I were on a highway. BUT........If I have no spare and the hole in the tire is too big what is AAA going to do? They will have to tow me to a tire shop or dealer for a fix. If I had a spare I could get on my way and fix it the next day or when ever I had the time.

Little things like this just get under my skin.

[Chris Kennedy]

I've never heard of it, but in some ways it makes sense. That's a lot of dead weight to carry around and statistically I'd bet they are very rarely used anymore. Most people couldn't change a tire if they tried, not that they would.

Really? Usually I'm pretty cynical, but I am not certain I agree.

I'm 35, and I changed my first tire when I was 18. I did it at about 10PM on the side of a Budapest freeway just after Christmas kneeling in a mixture of mud and snow. I had never done it before, but it isn't rocket science (I'll admit -- I made the mistake of cranking the car up on the jack and then trying to break the lugs free -- damn you Newton and your third law!).

I changed my second when I was in my late 20's. It was a Friday, and that afternoon it was the weekly get together for faculty at the pub. My wife and I were late because of the tire change, and when we told the story, everybody had their own story of tire changes, and the age of that crowd ran from mid 20's to 60's. But everybody had done it.

Last Spring, one of my students was having issues with one of her tires, and other students were explaining how to change the tire should the need arise. They were all well versed.

Cheers,

Chris

[Shawn Christ]

That sucks! Our 2008 Malibu came with a spare... it also has a tire pressure monitoring system. If they're giving you a can of fix-a-flat that pretty much ruins your ability to patch a tire in the future, right? I'd talk to the dealer; since they didn't mention a spare tire is now an option maybe you can work something out.

[Joe Pelonio]

That sucks! Our 2008 Malibu came with a spare... it also has a tire pressure monitoring system. If they're giving you a can of fix-a-flat that pretty much ruins your ability to patch a tire in the future, right? I'd talk to the dealer; since they didn't mention a spare tire is now an option maybe you can work something out.

The law required the TPMS on all new cars starting in 2007.

On both my Ranger and my wife's Liberty we paid additional for a full-sized spare that's mounted on the same styled wheel to match, but that's fairly commom on 4 wheel drives. I'm glad this "no spare" thing was shared, I'd
be more than annoyed if it didn't have one on a new car that I just paid over 20,000 for.

Dave,

Does your Mom still have the window sticker? I'd love to see what that says about it, if anything.

[Bob Turkovich]

I've never heard of it, but in some ways it makes sense. That's a lot of dead weight to carry around and statistically I'd bet they are very rarely used anymore........ Might as well get the 1% or so extra mileage.

Bingo!!!! Your CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) requirements at work, folks!! (Although it's probably less than 0.05mpg improvement- but that really does matter!!) Also sometimes used to bring a vehicle down to a lower emission weight test class (or more often is that you had to add something else to a vehicle to meet other requirements and this keeps you from going to a higher weight class).

Typically, you'll see this approach on smaller vehicles.