<p>Being realistic - getting rid of the spare tire would have a negligible effect on the fuel mileage. I doubt anyone would be able to notice it since it’s likely way less than 1mpg. This is especially true for a ‘donut’ space saver type or one on aluminum wheels rather than steel wheels.</p>
<p>The potential benefit of having a spare tire (for the car - not the one dad<em>of</em>3 is referring to) far outweighs (pun intended) any gain in fuel efficiency. Using it even one time to get on your way or avoid waiting sometimes hours for help to arrive is worth it.</p>
<p>I’ve used the spare countless times. I buy top of the line tires but seem to manage to drive over nails, screws, etc. which likely changes depending on where one drives most of the time. I think they’re not typically picked up on the freeway but rather, local streets and parking lots. Of course, having a full size spare is a must when 4-wheeling.</p>
Good point. Some other options are the ‘crossbar’ type where one can pull up on one side while pushing down on the other side - with their foot if necessary, and the electric impact wrenches that plug into the accessory outlet. I had one of these electric impact wrenches one time and returned it because it wasn’t up to the task but I’ve heard of others using them and it seemed to work for them - maybe a better model or easier lug nuts to remove. One should try it to make sure it works on their car before depending on it. Also - throw a pair of $5 work gloves in with the jack/spare to protect your hands in case you need to change a tire. A lot of new cars come with these already packed with the jack.</p>
<p>As long as we’re on the subject - if you jack up a car be very careful and don’t put any body parts under the jacked up part. I speak from experience since I had a jack fail once and the car fall and pin my arm - I’m very careful now.</p>
<p>I have a long lug wrench in my car… makes it much easier. Make sure that the one in your car matches your tires. When I bought my car, it had aftermarket rims… but for some reason they used the original lug nuts. They are very large in relation to the space that the rims allow for them. I had to go out and buy a special lug wrench for my car to fit in the space and allow me to take them off when need be.</p>
<p>I got a flat once when i was 2 hours away from home - I used a can of fix a flat and then drove to a friends house and repaired the tire myself. I also got a flat years ago at my parents house… took the tire off, repaired the tire and put it back on. Both times it wound up being a nail in the tire. Boy am I glad my dad taught me how to repair a tire. :)</p>
<p>Ah, but let’s look at the engineering side of the equation.</p>
<p>Number of miles driven in 1994: 1,793,000,000,000.
Average gas mileage: 21.0 miles per gallon
Total fuel consumed: 85,380,952,380 gallons!</p>
<p>Now, lets suppose that removing a spare tire improves gas mileage by 1/20th of a mpg. This is a tiny, tiny amount.</p>
<p>New average gas mileage: 21.05 mpg
New total fuel consumed: 85,178,147,268.</p>
<p>Difference: 202,805,112 gallons!</p>
<p>Can anyone here think of what they might do with 200 million gallons of gasoline? Anyone think that an idea of saving 200 million gallons of gasoline annually might be a good idea?</p>
<p>My son had a flat yesterday. More than just a flat–a completely shredded tire. His little sports car has no spare, of course. But that really wasn’t the issue–far more to the point, he was on the very narrow shoulder of a very fast highway and it wouldn’t have been safe to change the tire. He got out of the car to wait, in fact, in case someone hit the car. He said that the tow truck sent by the service contracted with his Safeco auto insurance (coverage he didn’t realize he had, but which I did know about) came in fifteen minutes. </p>
<p>Baby–I like your analysis. Every little bit helps! Maybe I’ll take the spare out of my car and put it in the garage.</p>
<p>Further comment: teach your kids how to change a tire. It’s not that hard, and it’s a useful skill, like driving a stickshift.</p>
<p>When one side of the equation has safety or convenience that are not factored in, to me this is incomplete enough to not to be relied on for a decision. If most of us drove the Tata Nano at >50 mpg the savings are many orders of magnitude higher. If you measure resource utilization over the next 50 generations, a society where they have one fewer child will account for the equivalent of gazzillions of gallons, so this factor alone will guide us towards the way of China rather than follow Al Gore’s lead. </p>
<p>So my take on it is that I’ll rely on engineering equations for engineering problems.</p>
<p>Eliminating the “other kind of spare tires” would probably save the same or more weight and fuel; it would also likely allow some people to buy smaller cars, which would save even more fuel.</p>
But before I had the 200 million gallons I’d have to drive the 1,793,000,000,000 miles.</p>
<p>You’re right, of course, regarding saved weight using less fuel even if the numbers are just for illustrative purposes. </p>
<p>You can extend the calcs to many data points but that doesn’t make the idea of removing the spare any better. Why not toss out the air bags in cars? The multiple speakers everywhere? The leather seats in favor of a lightweight cloth? Let’s get rid of the safety glass in cars because it’s heavier. And why throw extra braces and supports into ‘crumple zones’? Most people never use these safety features so why pay for them and suffer the extra weight? Nav systems certainly aren’t necessary and they also add to the weight of a car. And think of all the gas that could be saved if we just banned overweight people from riding in cars. And I haven’t checked but I wouldn’t be surprised if run flat tires were usually heavier than their normal counterparts due to the need for beefier sidewalls. People should remove the air conditioning from their cars since that adds a great deal of weight along with less efficiency due to the engine having to turn the compressor. You also should remove the back seat when not in use since that’d save some weight too and people should skip the power seat option. An obvious place to save weight is in the fuel itself - people should only put a few gallons of fuel in the car at a time rather than filling it up and carting all that extra fuel around all the time.</p>
<p>I don’t mind impacting that theoretical savings of gas in order to have a spare for when I need it.</p>
<p>All of these items add up to a lot of extra weight on a car. My 1966 Mustang (no air bags, no fancy stereo, no leather, no power seats, no a/c, no nav, no cruise control, etc.) weighs around 2445 pounds but a 2012 Mustang weighs in at 3453 pounds - over 1000 pounds heavier.</p>
<p>
I hope you’re not serious but if you are, good luck.</p>
<p>Adding roadside assistance or towing to your auto insurance is a great idea… even if you have AAA or whatever. It’s very very minimal as far as the costs are concerned and if their customer service is good they usually get someone to you very very quickly. When my car got broken into and my passenger side window was smashed, I called my auto insurance. The girl asked if I knew where I wanted to take my car, I said I had no clue. She asked if I could hold for a few minutes while she located some options for me, I said sure. She came back like 5 minutes later after personally calling about 5 different places in my area and asking when their next available appointment was and also making sure they had the correct window for my car in stock (I never would have thought to ask that when calling a place!). She found two that would come to my work and fix it that afternoon, or one that I could just drop it off after work… the one place had appts the next day and the other one would have had to order my window. I was so happy that she did all the calling around for me. Once I picked my option she went ahead and scheduled it for me with the place and it was all taken care of. I went with dropping it off at the place after work as it was literally right up the street from my house. I figured it would probably cost the insurance company less money to pay for that as opposed to someone coming out and fixing it in our work parking lot… since convienece usually tends to cost more…</p>