Road trip without a spare wheel/tyre? Never again!

[richierobs]

On the way back from the alps, I stopped for petrol at motorway services near Lyon. I accidentally clipped the curb with the front, passenger side wheel at ±1mph.
(All the pumps on my driver's side were occupied).

This particular piece of curb was damaged, pointy & sharp, and ripped a hole in the sidewall of my Vredestein Wintrac Extreme tyre. It was completely flat in less than a minute, and obviously not repairable with the bottle of tyre repair goo in the boot.

We called Audi assistance Europe (which is actually RAC France).
They advised us that because the french motorways are privately owned, it's the local breakdown service that have to recover the vehicle, and we have to call them out ourselves.

We did that and the recovery truck came shortly afterwards. We were taken with the car to the local recovery depot.

The RAC spoke to the people in the depot, and informed us that because it was an "unusual" tyre, and a Saturday lunctime, there would be no chance of getting a replacement tyre until Monday.

The RAC put us up in a local hotel for the weekend where we passed the time and waited for Monday.

In the meantime, the RAC said that from this point forwards, they were only responsible for the passengers, not the vehicle. RAC said the insurance company were responsible for the vehicle.

I called the insurance company, who were completely disinterested.
Their overseas department was closed on the weekend (useful!) and the advice from the UK office was to:
"sort it out yourselves, and then claim it back"
although,
"by the time you've paid the compulsory excess, there probably won't be much point"

Fortunately on Monday their overseas department were more helpful, and began to make arrangements to have the car towed to a garage with tyre fitting facilities, and replacement tyres.
In the meantime the RAC had asked us to check out of the hotel room, so we were literally hanging around in a hotel lobby surrounded by our luggage waiting for phone calls and updates.

At 4.30pm in the afternoon, after keeping us waiting ALL day, the insurance company called back to announce that
1. they'd managed to find a clause in the insurance policy
2. tyres were not covered
3. the car had not been towed anywhere,
4. and they were not going to help us after all.

I called back the RAC, who were just as surprised & outraged as we were about the waste of time with the insurance company. As we were now completely stranded again, the RAC decided to make an exception and help us with the vehicle. But because it was so late in the day, nothing could be done until tomorrow.

On Tuesday, a tow truck finally came and took us to a Bosch service center near Lyon. Via the RAC, we learned that nobody around there had even heard of Vredestein, and there was also a problem with the Wintrac Extreme's "W" rating, which even the local Audi garage claimed did not exist. (Although obviously it did as it was written right there on the sidewall.)
So as no replacement winter tyre was available, we had to get 2 new summer tyres instead.
(Tyres on the same axle have to match in France).

At this point I was so desperate to get back on the road that I probably would have agreed to just about anything!
The car was ready by 5pm, and we made it back to Eurotunnel just after midnight and caught a late train back to the UK.

Finally got home Wednesday morning, 3 days later than planned, with both of us going back to work a day later than expected!


So, lessons learned:
1. The RAC were very good and well worth the annual fee.
2. The insurance company were not.
3. The bottle of goo in the boot is not very useful, and I need a better solution for future trips.

Any suggestions?

Does anybody else carry a spare wheel for road trips?
Where does it go?
I was thinking maybe in a roof box?


Comments appreciated

Cheers

Rich

[DuncS3]

nightmare - glad you made it back in the end!

I am heading on a road trip in my old quattro, I have a space saver but I will be taking a spare tyre (that I happen to have) with me - albeit I wont need a lot of luggage with me so ok with space.

[richierobs]

Spare tyre is a good idea for sure.

The irony of our situation was that I had 6 spare tyres at home!!

One of them is definitely coming along for the trip next year!

We had (and usually have) tons of luggage, skiing, snowboarding, climbing & camping kit, so space is a premium.

Roofbox has been really useful, athough I'm not sure it's big enough for a 19" wheel & tyre

[adsgreen]

Just thinking aloud here so bear with me... you could take the tyre off the rim and just take that. At least then you only have to find a tyre fitter which should be a hell of a lot easier and as far as room goes you'll be able to stuff the inside of the tyre space with luggage and stuff.

A compromise granted, but you were unlucky in timing, location and nature of the accident.

I wouldn't want a tyre + alloy in a roof box as thats a fair bit of concentrated weight there.

[adsgreen]

Also shamelessly copied from Petrol Dave's post last year but you could get a proper space saver:
Jack - 8E0 011 031 N
Wheel - 1K0 601 027 B 03C
Tyre - Cotinental CST17 125/70R18 99M from bestbuytyres.co.uk

Silly thing is, I'm sure with some rearranging you could relocate the battery and fit the wheel in the proper spot. Shame you can't put the battery in the left side space after the wheel arch and the compressor/goo in the other. Weight shift would be pretty negligable and if you did it correctly could make it reversible for normal day to day use /trackdays.

[RS6chris!]

Also shamelessly copied from Petrol Dave's post last year but you could get a proper space saver:
Jack - 8E0 011 031 N
Wheel - 1K0 601 027 B 03C
Tyre - Cotinental CST17 125/70R18 99M from bestbuytyres.co.uk

Silly thing is, I'm sure with some rearranging you could relocate the battery and fit the wheel in the proper spot. Shame you can't put the battery in the left side space after the wheel arch and the compressor/goo in the other. Weight shift would be pretty negligable and if you did it correctly could make it reversible for normal day to day use /trackdays.

I assume this is the standard Audi spacesaver?? Excellent idea...does anyone have costs??

[adsgreen]

Been playing on http://www.kouki.co.uk/utilities/visual ... calculator and the closest fit for rolling radius is a 145/70R18 (0.1% in it).
This is standard size for BMW's so I would hope the tyre is fairly easy to get and should fit on a 3.5J rim (I think)

[amanda1]

I have a spare tire/rim and no way would i go on a road trip without it ......glad you made it back safe

[Rick_RS4]

will that space saver clear the front caliper? offset wise?

[irvind]

Hmmm, pretty dull to lose 3 days of your life to a bit of rubber! Think I'll chuck a spare in the back next week when I go away!

[adsgreen]

Also shamelessly copied from Petrol Dave's post last year but you could get a proper space saver:
Jack - 8E0 011 031 N
Wheel - 1K0 601 027 B 03C
Tyre - Cotinental CST17 125/70R18 99M from bestbuytyres.co.uk

Silly thing is, I'm sure with some rearranging you could relocate the battery and fit the wheel in the proper spot. Shame you can't put the battery in the left side space after the wheel arch and the compressor/goo in the other. Weight shift would be pretty negligable and if you did it correctly could make it reversible for normal day to day use /trackdays.

I assume this is the standard Audi spacesaver?? Excellent idea...does anyone have costs??

Petrol dave has one and fairly sure it fits on fronts (not ceramic cars though)
Cost wise I think all in for under 200 iirc (tyre, rim, jack)

[neckarsulm]

(this is from my post earlier this year - gone up a few quid due to VAT)

Just ordered mine as this story was so painful to hear and I am off to Europe this year;

prices from Audi;
8E0 011 031 N JACK RRP 22.11 + VAT (gone up a bit since original post)
1K0 601 027 B 03C WHEEL DISC RRP 62.92 + VAT (gone up too)

£70 inc VAT for the spacesaver tyre from Selly Oak Tyres on 0121 471 4702

If anyone wants this I can round up all the parts and have them ready to be collected from the above tyre place which is in Birmingham B29 7DL just off A38 or mail order will be plus about £15.

He also quoted £170 + VAT for Bridgestones 255 35 19 (which I have on mine and are excellent for road use - not used em on track)

[andre3k]

(this is from my post earlier this year - gone up a few quid due to VAT)

Just ordered mine as this story was so painful to hear and I am off to Europe this year;

prices from Audi;
8E0 011 031 N JACK RRP 22.11 + VAT (gone up a bit since original post)
1K0 601 027 B 03C WHEEL DISC RRP 62.92 + VAT (gone up too)

£70 inc VAT for the spacesaver tyre from Selly Oak Tyres on 0121 471 4702

If anyone wants this I can round up all the parts and have them ready to be collected from the above tyre place which is in Birmingham B29 7DL just off A38 or mail order will be plus about £15.

He also quoted £170 + VAT for Bridgestones 255 35 19 (which I have on mine and are excellent for road use - not used em on track)

I did query on the old thread whether that was the correct tyre size for the job. When I ran it through a calc I got a 4% discrepancy in RR.

Are you able to source the parts with adsgreen's tyre size?

[adsgreen]

looks like that space saver tyre size is mainly in the US. Shame.

[adsgreen]

It looks like it's a standard mitsubishi spare on the US Lancer GS3/4.
Just trying to see what is used on the uk models as the normal road tyre size is the same in the UK.