spare tyre......

[britlude]

following on from Duncans research into the tweaked Mercedes Benz spare wheel solution, I set upon sorting my own spare tyre....

as you can see, after the best part of 20 years of getting hot/cooling down/getting hot..... and so on, the rubber was past it's best....


Of course, as soon as I hit E-of-the-bay there were no MB wheels to be seen, i trawled around, finding a set of 4 porsche 944 wheels, but £100+ was excessive, but I found an audi spare....


unfotunately it turned out to be a A2 optional spare, 155/70x15, so was a good 1 1/2 inches shorter when inflated, and to add insult to injury the A2 is 100mmx5 pcd, so no chance of fettling the bolt holes to suit anyway!


oh well, back on ebay for that! at least got some money back!

[britlude]

In the meantime, some lucky soul had bought the four porsche wheels and removed the tyres so he could use the wheels on his Golf and relisted the tyres at £15 each.... Now obviously the tyres are impossible to remove/fit as they are not available for sale except to OEM.. you'd think they were bonded/fitted by magic.... apparently not!

anyhoo, I received the best tyre of the bunch, and had little to lose!


a good as new Vredstein tyre, in glorious 165x15


with the tyre and spare i set off to my trusted tyre firm, been using them for years, and they know what they are doing.... needless to say they've never done a space saver like this, and never seen one off the rim! so with a little encouragement i persuaded them to have a go! After the initial 'no we can't do it' i left it with them to have a play, on my return it was described as 'far easier than expected'..... and for a tenner!



so a shiny new tyre fitted, it was lobbed in the car, the overall diameter is about 10mm bigger when deflated, but fits in just fine!
one less thing to worry about! I really should give the wheel a paint up....

[TheSebringOne]

Great job, sounds like a great solution to a problem that affects us all with an older NSX.

[Sudesh]

Great work again Jonathan! Super solution to the £1000+ replacement from our friend Honda lol

Can I ask, have you blown the tire up yet and tested to see if stays up ok?

[britlude]

yes, it was inflated at the tyre fitters as they were fascinated how it works, and to make sure it did work!

[sorepaws]

does this imply that if you can find the same type of tyre on any other wheel that it can be removed and refitted on the NSX spare rim ?

Sorry if I seem obtuse

Mike