Spare tyres

[Patr80l]

Two tales of two spares:
I had matching wheels (and spare) on my trailer.   A flat on the 80 Series the wrong side of Broken Hill didn't need to be repaired until I got home as the rest of the trip was on bitumen and I still had a healthy spare.
My Touareg has a space saver as standard that needs to be inflated and looks like a tube and not a tyre when inflated.   I therefore took a full sized spare on an outback trip a few years ago.   I almost left the space saver at home to free up the space under the floor to store stuff.   Two unrepairable tyres (Dalhousie and Finke) meant I was glad to have that spacesaver.   It's a long and slow drive from Finke to Alice when you're nursing a speed-limited, glorified 'tube with tread' over 200km of corrugations.   I kept it under 40km/hr.
So, a second spare does give you extra security.

[cyberess]

Had 10 day trip into Home Valley Station, by the 5th day I had sort badly staked 3 tyres, and I had 2 spares    the sort of staking that was beyond repairing with plugs – Picked out the best tyre and done dodgy repairs with superglue and tyre patches, and some rubber goo, that tyre blew out 4 more times during the trip, had the tyre off and on the rim about 9 times, it was sort of a nightmare, the last time it blew out was on the actual Gibb River Road and used the last of the super glue and a borrowed tube and slowly limped back slowly into Kununurra where I purchased 2 new tyres.

 

[Ragman]

good topic Wunderlust, I'll be taking 2 spares to the Kimberley. with a more common wheel I'd probably chance one spare, but matching Touareg wheels or tyres would be hard to find on the Gibb I guess.

Also the traction control doesn't like mismatched tyres. Even the same size and brand with a different tread pattern can upset it.

with 6 new tyres I can rotate them every 10000km and get a lot of traveling from them.

[trinityalyce]

We took two spares on our recent trip, didn't use either and had some incredibly rocky roads. I think we have a tyre repair kit in the car too somewhere just in case! I wish I had before and after photos of the KM2's on the Patrol - some of the roads on this trip really ripped them to shreds!

Honestly I've rarely needed to change a tyre. I think I've had a flat twice...? But why take the risk when you're in the middle of nowhere.

[lloydus67]

8 tyres or 10 if you have a tandem axle van, regularly rotated will give you best value, life expectancy and less likelihood of a puncture.
Most tow vehicles tend to wear their tyres much quicker than a van or camper, which is more likely to crack rather than wear out. Most punctures tend to happen when the tread is in the latter stages of its life.
So rotatating tyres on vehicle, trailer and spares will not only prevent more punctures and give you better tyre life / value for money but you are also unlikely to suffer a blowout from a tyre with lots of tread, but that is perished and brittle from old age


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[Patr80l]

good topic Wunderlust, I'll be taking 2 spares to the Kimberley. with a more common wheel I'd probably chance one spare, but matching Touareg wheels or tyres would be hard to find on the Gibb I guess.

Also the traction control doesn't like mismatched tyres. Even the same size and brand with a different tread pattern can upset it.

with 6 new tyres I can rotate them every 10000km and get a lot of traveling from them.

Further to my Touareg story, when I got to Alice Springs I was told that two Pirelli Scorpions could be shipped from Pt Augusta the following week.   The only tyres in Alice that I could find to fit were a pair of General Grabber 255/55 R18's which were luckily the same circumference as the Scorpions.    (Not all 255/55 R18's are the same!)   At the time, the full sized spare that I had bought with me from home was one of a set of four I had bought cheap.   So it was a pain to have to buy two tyres in Alice when I had three sitting at home in Melbourne!
ps I think it's the more complicated traction systems and electronic diff locks etc that is bothered by the mismatched tyres.   If it was just the traction control you could just turn that off.   When I bought my second Touareg last month (yay!) I was told that it's "tyre pressure monitoring" system detects deflation by the change in rolling circumference via the ABS sensors rather than pressure monitors in the wheels.   These Volkswagens are quirky!

[mynance]

My uncle takes 4 or more spares for his Patrol when he goes hunting in the NT or the Gulf, often uses all of them on a trip.

But he uses crappy old 2nd hand ones to save money.
If used good tyres he probably wouldn't need any of them, but good exercise when your over 78.

Myles


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[KieranR]

Carried two spares on rims on our trip across the top, needed them both, tore one Tyre up heading into bell gorge when I found an old tree stump protruding out onto the track, then had a Tyre disintegrate up near Lake Argyle, before i had bothered to replace the first one that went.  Made for an expensive day in Kunnunnurra