# AAA tells BMW and others - Bring back the spare tire



## tim330i (Dec 18, 2001)

*AAA wants spare tires back in new cars, fuel economy be damned*

BMW and other automakers have slowly and silently removing spare tires from new vehicles. Replacing the security of a complete replacement wheel and tire with run flat tires (RFT) and inflation kits. The spare has been removed to safe weight, weight is the enemy of fuel economy. With never ending market and political pressure to increase fuel economy auto makers have taken drastic measure to cut any and everything deemed unnecessary out of the car. The result, fractionally better fuel economy that really only matters to regulators and dramatically more headaches for owners if you ever get a flat.

*AAA says:*


> "Despite advances in vehicle technology, we have not seen a decline in tire-related calls over the last five years," said John Nielsen, a director for AAA's engineering and repair division.
> 
> Automakers have been removing spare tires for a number of reasons. Primarily, it helps cut down on vehicle curb weight. The rule of thumb states that every 100 pounds taken out of a car improves its fuel economy by roughly one percent. However, inflator kits only save around 30 pounds, according to the American Automobile Association. So, if your 40 mpg sedan loses its spare, fuel economy should rise to a barely


_Read more_

AAA makes money by providing road side assistance, so you know this is a major issue if they're advocating action that could decrease their profits.

Who's been stuck on the side of the road because their BMW didn't have a spare tire?


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## DjD-X5 (Nov 4, 2015)

AAA is membership based and flat tires are just one part of the roadside services they offer their members. If cars had spare tires a lot of their members would change the flat without even thinking about calling for assistance. I think if every car had a spare it would reduce enough calls for flat tires across the country and it would greatly impact their profits... 

Another example of this money saving logic is; I worked for a large company whos fleet director decided to not do routine servicing and oil changes during the 4th quarter and it saved the company many millions of dollars even after having to replace some vehicles that died for lack of servicing.


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## marcozandrini (Feb 13, 2014)

RFTs are crap. Yeah, you can drive 50 miles on a flat but when you do you'll have to replace the tire and sometimes the alloy. Have a plain old flat RFT tire? Try to get it fixed. Most shops will tell you that it can't be fixed and it'll take 3 days for a replacement. 

I'll stick with my trusty E46 with a full size spare and Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires. We don't need no stinkin' run flats!


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

Fuel economy... NOT be damned.

Radial tires get about 7% better fuel economy than bias-ply tires (now called "diagonal-ply" because nobody want a racist or sexist tire). This is because the cords are only in the... well... radial direction. The tire sidewall can still stretch in the circumferential direction (90 degrees from the radial direction). This sidewall stretching is what allows the tread of the tire to become flat where it contacts the road. This prevents some of the scuffing of the tread against the pavement, improving tread wear, fuel economy, and traction.

But, RFT's have rigid sidewalls. So, the tread cannot fully conform to the road, increasing tread wear, and reducing fuel economy and traction.

Here's a field test done by Tire Rack. Any field test data has unknown and uncontrollable variables. That's why you do laboratory testing. But, in their test, RTF's got 5.5% less fuel economy than similar non-RTF's.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=186

I bought a (front) full size spare for my E46 M3. It would fit on the back with a spacer and longer lug bolts (available from Tire Rack, part of their winter tire package). In about 135k miles of BMW-ing (verb meaning to drive a BMW), I've only ended up on the side of the road once with a flat tire, and that was due to a valve stem failure (in the M3). Because of the spare, I was on my way in 20 minutes. But, that spare took up much of the trunk. I could only travel in the car with duffle bags, and most of them in the back seat.

Back in August, I was invited to a BMW event comparing BMW's to M-B's and Lexi (plural of Lexus). I drove an SL550 (awesome) and an E350 (o.k., but that's it). I pulled up the carpet in the trunk of the E350 and showed the BMW rep' the spare. I then showed him the mini-spare taking up room in the trunk of my 535i (a mini-spare rim off an E70 X5, with a spacer). I told the BMW rep' that he was lucky this E70 jury rig worked, or else I'd be driving an E350. I also told him the lack of a spare and/or trunk space was the final straw in my not replacing my M3 with an M5.

I went to a Porsche event this week. There was a Macan Turbo there. It had a collapsible spare tire, as opposed to a mini-spare. Porsche sells a collapsible spare tire for the Carrera's, but it rides in the back seat in it's own "baby seat." It's only available from a Florida Porsche dealer (Suncoast) who specializes in non-US spec Porsche parts and accessories. I suspect it's not directly available in the U.S. for product liability reasons (specifically a 40 pound spare tire, wheel, and jack potentially flying around in the passenger compartment in a wreck).

The X5 has an optional mini-spare, and a storage compartment. The new X1 and the new 7 Series have the same. So, BMW is listening... slowly. It's a pretty good bet that the upcoming new X3 and 5 Series will have mini-spares and storage compartments. The X1 and 7 Series still have run-flats. That's because Muffy the soccer mom is still worried about getting a flat and getting gang raped on the side of the road waiting for (or by) BMW Roadside Assistance.


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

DjD-X5 said:


> Another example of this money saving logic is; I worked for a large company whos fleet director decided to not do routine servicing and oil changes during the 4th quarter and it saved the company many millions of dollars even after having to replace some vehicles that died for lack of servicing.


That guy sounds like a real genius, sort of a one-man Cash For Clunkers program within the corporation. :tsk:

I worked for the Navy. The Navy had a problem with mandated over-maintenance for non-aviation and non-nuclear systems. By questioning and reducing maintenances practices, the Navy saved literally billions of dollars, probably hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Lowering maintenance requirements on aviation and nuclear systems will still get you killed, either quickly or slowly, respectively.


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## DjD-X5 (Nov 4, 2015)

Autoputzer said:


> That guy sounds like a real genius, sort of a one-man Cash For Clunkers program within the corporation. :tsk:
> 
> I worked for the Navy. The Navy had a problem with mandated over-maintenance for non-aviation and non-nuclear systems. By questioning and reducing maintenances practices, the Navy saved literally billions of dollars, probably hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
> 
> Lowering maintenance requirements on aviation and nuclear systems will still get you killed, either quickly or slowly, respectively.


LOL... that's what happens when the bean counters take over... The poor folks driving the vehicles for work every day were also given buckets and a sponge and all the fleet car washes were decommissioned. It's all about the all mighty dollar!


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

DjD-X5 said:


> LOL... that's what happens when the bean counters take over... The poor folks driving the vehicles for work every day were also given buckets and a sponge and all the fleet car washes were decommissioned. It's all about the all mighty dollar!


O.k., you got me spun up now...

I worked in bank's courier office as a part time job in college. One of my jobs was to fuel and do a daily turnaround (check the oil, coolant, and windshield washing fluid, change any burnt out bulbs) on about 25 vehicles.

My supervisor was a profound moron. 1980's vintage Fords consistently used a quart of conventional oil in about 2000 miles. I asked for plastic bottles of oil to top off the vehicles (instead of the cans that were still on the market back then, that required the oil can spouts that always leaked). Nope. What we'd have spent extra on getting the bottles of oil, we probably would have saved in paper towels.

I tried to get them to switch to Mobil 1 synthetic oil with 7.5k mile drain intervals instead of rot-gut oil at 3k miles drain intervals. In addition to saving fuel (~2%) and oil change costs, it'd have saved more than 50% of the labor costs of paying another profound moron to take cars on a 20 mile round trip for those 3k mile oil changes and tire replacement. Nope. That caused their head to explode like on the jet.com commercials.

(With Mobil 1 and Slick 50 (back when it was made by Petrolon, and really worked), I got my parents' 1985 Ford's oil economy to 3800 miles/quart at 100k miles.)

I asked for an air compressor, so that I could maintain the air pressure in the tires. They were always low, and we'd go through tires rapidly. Nope.

One of my other jobs was driving an E250 (3/4 ton van) to the other side of the state and back one night a week. I picked up the truck loaded. When I got on in the interstate, the truck started yaw oscillating due to low tire pressure. I stopped and filled them at a gas station. But, the supervisory profound moron had ordered the non-supervisory profound moron to replace the OEM Load Range "E" tires that took 60 PSI with Load Range "D" tires that only took 45 PSI. I didn't know this. When I was filling one off the tires, it deflated. I then checked the sidewalls of the tires and discovered that they were 45 PSI "D" tires instead of 60 PSI "E" tires that were supposed to be in on the truck. After taking the tire off, I discovered that it didn't blow from over inflation, but rather from knocking an embedded nail loose. Because of the delay, I missed a deadline for making a multi-hecto-million dollar deposit of checks at the Federal Reserve, causing the loss of one day's interest on a few hecto-million dollars. I was written up. :bawling:

I was also written up later for "ruining" a gallon of anti-freeze by pre-mixing it with a gallon of water. :thumbup:

This was in the days of sealed-beam headlights. I had a stockpile of headlights, since these cars and trucks spent all night one the road. The non-supervisory profound moron could never throw anything away. On night I went to get a headlight out of the supply cabinet, and discovered that all of the remaining headlights were in boxes marked "LOW BEAM BURNT OUT." WTF? I had a Exxon credit card to buy supplies. I bought five headlights. But, these non-halogen, sealed beam headlights at the Exxon station were $60 each, instead of the $5 you'd pay for them at an auto parts store. OFW. I was written up again.

The final straw was when I wasted money on... get this... tolls. Instead of driving five miles through Richmond, Virginia's worst ghetto at 2 a.m. I took the limited access (interstate) toll roads around the ghetto on my way to the Federal Reserve. ... another letter in my file.

They couldn't fire me until they had a replacement. The first one I had to train was a retired naval officer (and father of CAPT Ken Reightler Jr., Naval Astronaut). He also had a low tolerance for profound morons and only stayed long enough to make his $2000 for his annual IRA contribution. Candidate #2 was some old guy who was so senile that he only lasted a week. Candidate #3, drove a station wagon away from the gas pump with the nozzle still in the tank and on. The gas spill was so big that the Coast Guard spill clean-up team was deployed with the bank getting charged for it. The river was one block from the bank, via the storm drain. This was before auto-shut off pumps. Candidate #4 and #5 finally worked out. I was replaced by two people.

Years later, after I was working as an engineer, I was back in Norfolk, the town I grew up and went to college in. Driving down the urban-interstate, there it was... one of the bank's courier vans parked on the shoulder. I recognized the "THIS VEHICLE CARRIES NO CASH" decal on the back window. About a half mile down the interstate, there he was.... non-supervisory profound moron... carrying a gas can and walking back to the parked van. I had to take the next exit, turn around, do a U-turn at the previous interchange, and stop. I didn't give him a ride back to the van. I just stopped and teased him about being such a profound moron, pointed out my new car, and drove on.

ENS Ken Reightler, Jr. was the #1 Aerospace Engineering grad' in has USNA class. He was then #1 in his class at flight school. Being in the top 15%, he was allowed to pick his aircraft. The bottom 85% are assigned aircraft based literally on a roll of the dice, what the Navy calls the "quality spread," or the "idiot spread." Anyway, ENS Reightler picked a P-3 Orion, essentially a 1950's vintage airliner. The detailer explained to ENS Reightler that he was (still) on the path to being an admiral, but to do so he needed to be in a fighter or attack bomber. ENS Reightler thanked the detailer for the offer to be an admiral, but said he was going to be an astronaut instead.... and he did! What a badass.


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

DjD-X5 said:


> LOL... that's what happens when the bean counters take over... The poor folks driving the vehicles for work every day were also given buckets and a sponge and all the fleet car washes were decommissioned. It's all about the all mighty dollar!


Actually, what they found was that excessive maintenance (to non-aviation and non-nuclear equipment) was causing more damage than it was preventing. Also, it was working the sailors until they dropped.

I did more bean counting in my job than engineering. Beans are important. The only reason I went to work was to get beans every other Friday.


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## whoever (Jun 9, 2009)

Autoputzer said:


> Fuel economy... NOT be damned.
> 
> Radial tires get about 7% better fuel economy than bias-ply tires (now called "diagonal-ply" because nobody want a racist or sexist tire). This is because the cords are only in the... well... radial direction. The tire sidewall can still stretch in the circumferential direction (90 degrees from the radial direction). This sidewall stretching is what allows the tread of the tire to become flat where it contacts the road. This prevents some of the scuffing of the tread against the pavement, improving tread wear, fuel economy, and traction.


Real fuel economy tests are done on rollers, so tire tread are irrelevant


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## sixpot_simon (Sep 13, 2013)

DjD-X5 said:


> LOL... that's what happens when the bean counters take over... The poor folks driving the vehicles for work every day were also given buckets and a sponge and all the fleet car washes were decommissioned. It's all about the all mighty dollar!


Were they expected to keep the vehicles clean? If not, I would have let it get so dirty that you couldn't tell what colour it was!

But my guess is that they were expected to drive clean cars, and do said cleaning in their own time. "Externalising costs" is the fancy management phrase for it. Anything to pump up their own annual bonus. Pricks!


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## DjD-X5 (Nov 4, 2015)

sixpot_simon said:


> Were they expected to keep the vehicles clean? If not, I would have let it get so dirty that you couldn't tell what colour it was!
> 
> But my guess is that they were expected to drive clean cars, and do said cleaning in their own time. "Externalising costs" is the fancy management phrase for it. Anything to pump up their own annual bonus. Pricks!


The hourly had the union behind them but if they wanted a clean truck it was on them and they could do it between jobs on company time. Mgnt initially were allowed to expense an occasional car wash but eventually most departments experienced the same budget cuts as fleet and put a stop to that.


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## DjD-X5 (Nov 4, 2015)

Autoputzer said:


> Actually, what they found was that excessive maintenance (to non-aviation and non-nuclear equipment) was causing more damage than it was preventing. Also, it was working the sailors until they dropped.
> 
> I did more bean counting in my job than engineering. Beans are important. The only reason I went to work was to get beans every other Friday.


Fine line between excessive maintenance and not enough... Also sometimes the vehicle was better off not being worked on as opposed to a tired grave yard shift tech causing more harm than good!


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## sixpot_simon (Sep 13, 2013)

DjD-X5 said:


> The hourly had the union behind them but if they wanted a clean truck it was on them and they could do it between jobs on company time


Fair enough. In that case, I should retract my rant!


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

DjD-X5 said:


> Fine line between excessive maintenance and not enough... Also sometimes the vehicle was better off not being worked on as opposed to a tired grave yard shift tech causing more harm than good!


The most unnecessary maintenance I ever saw was a bunch of Marines removing, disassembling, repacking, and reinstalling wheel bearings on bomb trailers (that take bombs from the magazine to the flight line). Wheel bearings, left alone, are good for over 100k miles.


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## listerone (Jul 21, 2009)

Agree 100% All cars,regardless of price or class,should have a space saver at the very least.It matters not how such a move would affect AAA's profits...it's a safety issue.


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

Preventative maintenance, excessive or not, is merely the cost of doing the nuclear (power/weapons) business. Its objective success is evident.


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## rmjames007 (Jun 21, 2012)

I agree. I would actually like to see the spare tire returned. Or have it as an option in models


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## need4speed (May 26, 2006)

At least made an option


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## DjD-X5 (Nov 4, 2015)

listerone said:


> Agree 100% All cars,regardless of price or class,should have a space saver at the very least.It matters not how such a move would affect AAA's profits...it's a safety issue.


Not sure I see the safety factor in a spare, convenience maybe for some but changing a tire on the side of the road is not that safe!


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## whoever (Jun 9, 2009)

DjD-X5 said:


> Not sure I see the safety factor in a spare, convenience maybe for some but changing a tire on the side of the road is not that safe!


It's like those AWD vs snow tire debate. I have a full size spare, the gooy thingy, tire plug and a pump. I would place an order tonight if they offer a spare in M3 :bigpimp:


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## Pat_X5 (Aug 23, 2008)

I ditched my RFT as soon as I could and got conventional tires and a space saver spare.


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## AkinLucas (Nov 21, 2015)

Just got a 2010 X6 today in Lagos Nigeria and will like to know if the AAA thing work in Nigeria


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

AkinLucas said:


> Just got a 2010 X6 today in Lagos Nigeria and will like to know if the AAA thing work in Nigeria


Do you mean the *American Automobile Association* thing?


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## AkinLucas (Nov 21, 2015)

YEAH, I have seen their logo in Nigeria too but just needed to check whether this is also applicable here in Nigeria


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## Falcon900Easy (Nov 14, 2011)

My X6 came with run flats. These things will be gone as soon as they wear out. The ride is horrible. Pilot Super Sports and a mobility kit are in my future.


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## need4speed (May 26, 2006)

Falcon900Easy said:


> My X6 came with run flats. These things will be gone as soon as they wear out. The ride is horrible. Pilot Super Sports and a mobility kit are in my future.


:thumbup:


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## mr_clueless (Nov 13, 2009)

Maybe AAA is more concerned about non-RFT. Each time that a non-RFT fails, and the can of goo doesn't work, they have to tow. That increases their service costs significantly, so they may have to start raising their membership fees.


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

We just declined AAA renewal as redundant of BMW Assist, and source of too much spam/junk mail.


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## JimD1 (Jun 5, 2009)

Gas mileage is not the only reason car manufacturers are reluctant to include spare tires. We have AAA for me, my wife, and two college age daughters. If I need to change a tire, the only issue is how I am dressed. I declined to change the tire on a rental once because I was in a suit. I wasn't going to risk damage to the suit to save the car company the hassle of dealing with the tire on their vehicle. But if I am not in clothes that might be ruined if I deal with the tire I would change it. But I have also had lug nuts put on so tight I could not budge them, even at home with an impact wrench. No chance by the side of the road. So even with a full size guy who carries more than the minimum of tools, the tire still might not get changed.

For the three ladies in the house, there is even less chance the tire will be changed. I check their tire pressure sometimes but the spare gets checked less - and the space saver need 60psi so they need aired up more often.

Now for AAA, they have the tools and a source of air. So if you have a spare, they can get it on for you quickly. If you do not have a spare, they will probably have to tow you and the first 100 miles is free (to you). Much greater cost to AAA than 15 minutes time to change out to the spare. Much greater cost to you too.

I would like to have a spare but I just carry a compressor and plugging kit. My flats have been slow leaks, not blowouts, except for one dry rotted tire on a boat trailer. So with a compressor, I would get home. And if it leaks too fast, I can try a plug. So I can probably deal with it myself. I may get nailed someday and have to call AAA, get towed, and wait for a tire. But I've been driving 44 years now and I've never called for assistance for a flat yet - except for the rental mentioned earlier (when I had a ride to the airport so I did the easiest thing for me). 

But back to the point, for the car manufacturer, they are looking at worse gas mileage, wasted space, to provide something that will not do much of anything for the average car driver. If they are physically capable of changing the tire they may not because of how they are dressed, or the spare may not have enough air, or some monkey with a impact wrench may have the lug nuts on so tight nobody can get the loose without a similarly powerful impact wrench. But in the end, if there is enough demand, they will provide the spare.


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