[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by tex2670

No--we are talking about the auto industry, and trends (and unrealistic expectations) relating to spare tires.

But PRIMARILY we are talking about you knowingly buying a car without a spare and ditching the RFTs and riding around with no safety net other than roadside assistance.

And...you keep saying "simply 45 minutes" to swap out the spare--which is misleading. Because spare or RFTs, you still need to deal with the damaged tire. Which will put your car in the shop regardless.

Yep

And there are more females than males in the world. Are they going to change a spare that most everyone would never be able to mount single handed on the side of the road....or do they want this?

http://agirlsguidetocars.com/contine...e-life-really/

I’d sure want that for any female I cared about.

[Elvisfan]

I need to have some backup. I have the standard 19 in rft. If there was room,I’d also have a spare. I’ll be covered in most situations. My other car had no spare or rft. I bought a spare tire kit. There was a space for it. I’d rather not change a tire. Or wait an hour or more for service. It’s hard to cover every situation.

[HighlandPete]

Originally Posted by tex2670

No--we are talking about the auto industry, and trends (and unrealistic expectations) relating to spare tires...

Yes, times change. At least BMW do give us the RFT, many cars have no standard provision for a puncture.

One problem for full sized spares these days, wheels have become so large. Even if you have a space saving spare, what do you do with a damaged wheel if you need to change with a full trunk? The full sized wheel requires a lot of space. For example, a 5-series rear wheel with a 275 section tire, needs a lot trunk space.

From an engineering perspective I can see why getting rid of the 'spare' gives much more flexibility to design. Something as important as the rear crumple zone is not hampered by a wheel well, accommodating the strongest wheel combination.

[XxThe_RemedyXx]

BMW can't spare a spare!

[Cyanfall]

Even if you had spare, and your tire exploded beyond repair in the middle of the road so you could not pull the car anywhere safer like a parking lot, were you gonna change your tire on the road? Thats suicidal.
Both spare tires and RFT are for situations that tire only slightly or moderately damaged.

[Cyanfall]

Originally Posted by tex2670

Do they have shorter tread life? Or does it just seem that way because they are frequently installed on cars with low-profile tires, all of which have shorter tread life. My car before my BMW had 45 series go-flats, and I could barely get 20k miles out of those. My RFTs are not wearing any quicker than that (but they are a different brand, so it's hard to compare directly)

According to the UTSQ rating, RFT often has around 200 to 300 thread life while many normal tires has around 500.
I think the reason is that since the sidewalls of RTF are so rigid, they need to soften the rubbers to make ride acceptable for human. Softer rubber = shorter thread life.