The reason given for the car wash thing, although why anyone would like to take a convertible through an automated car wash is frankly beyond my comprehension anyway, is that by having a space saver wheel and tyre installed may give less ground clearance 
Typical scaremongering from Watchdog I think. While you can criticise a number of things with sealant I don’t think that they are ‘hard to use’ is one of them. Frankly, if you can’t work the sealant I doubt that you would be able to safely change a wheel anyway.
Then, when you factor in how few people would bother to change a wheel themselves even if they could, you have to question the value of weighing every car in the country down with a full-size spare - it is unfortunately a case of lowest common denominator.
As for how somebody can realise at the roadside that they don’t have a full size spare, that is beyond me.
When you read the statistics provided they are full of holes (pardon the pun) - “…call outs to drivers…leapt by 20%” - no mention of timescales or how that relates to the number of customers or number of cars on the road. Greenflag are a relatively new company so I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of customers has increased by more than that in the last few years. Does the 80,000 RAC callouts include people who have spares which are also flat, or have removed them to increase storage space?
Hmm, it looked pretty fairly balanced to me given there are many folk capable of changing a wheel if one was provided. I’d much sooner do that than wait around for a breakdown truck.
How much time and energy is wasted by those who can’t change a wheel for whatever reason? Wheel changing and providing fuel for fools who run out should be chargeable extras or a no claims discount given to others.
It does not have to be the driver who changes the wheel if you have decent breakdown cover they will come out (even to your home) and do it for you. There are someplaces where no one should change a wheel (motorway hard shoulder etc). Not having a servicable spare should be concidered an MOT fail (IMHO).
Spare wheels should be complusory…period…even if it is a small un
Bulbs should be able to be replaced within 2 mins without tools…a set of bulbs should be provided with every car sold…I believe it costs about £2.00 for a bulb from Citron…and £85 labour to remove the front bumper to get at the light clusters…whats all that about !? utter pants and poor design
You should never try to change the wheel of a car on the motorway hard shoulder…about 200 people are killed or seriously injured every year messing about on the hard shoulder…when lorries sweep by inches from your car the wind is enough to knock your car off the jack…it could fall on you even on the nearside…not worth the risk
On an “A” road you should only change the wheel if it is really safe…better to drive on a flat to park the car somewhere safe than to risk injury /death…yes you bugger up a tyre or a wheel…but better that than dying…
Bet you most reading this have not checked that the spare they have in their boot has even got any air in it…make sure it has at least 10 lbs extra in it…over the min it should have for acarrying a load…coss it will go down over a period of time…don’t for a moment believe that it is checked when your car goes for a service…because they don’t
It must be a legal requirment in some countries as I know that the Honda factory this gets lorryloads of spaces savers in (my mate drives the lorry).
Am I alone in thinking it perfectly reasonable to suggest that carrying around 10kg of dead weight on every journey to be prepared for a fairly unusual occurrance, is a bit of a waste of fuel and emissions? Especially as the vast majority of people carrying it around wouldn’t dream of jacking up their car on the roadside…we’re talking about millions upon millions of cars all carrying useless weight around with them.
In the end, it makes a catastrophic puncture a bit more inconvenient for the AA man, that’s about it. The handful of people happy to get out in the road on a dark rainy night to take their lives into their own hands changing a wheel will be annoyed at that, sure, but otherwise it really seems the way forward to me.
The guy on Watchdog could’ve been more honest though. It makes their emissions and fuel figures that bit better, that’s the main reason…and the bigger boot space…the cost difference is negligible to them and frankly they don’t care about polar bears one bit.
Sorry Mr. Meldrew but the extra weight of carrying a spare wheel and jack and wheelbrace should really be saved elsewhere in modern cars, smaller high efficiancy starter motors and battery for example or reduce the fuel tank capacity by 15 Litres as another example… in fact most of the mini-SUV`s have enough unused headroom to hang a full sized spare wheel from the roof 
ok maybe not but it is crazy to not have a spare wheel at all. Audi had the right idea of producing a very lightweight but strong aluminium jack.
I do also think changing a wheel should be part of the driving test training ( I`m going to stop short of my ideal, namelt that ladies should only be alowed to drive Chelsea Tractors if they can prove they are capable of changing a wheel and being able to remove/replace a wheel from the rear door mmounting point…) along with what our European cousins specify, that hi-viz vests and a warning triangle be carried to make the process of roadside wheel changing as safe as possible…
Most people would not want to extend the journey time by 2 and a 1/2 hours and probably incur a double priced tyre just to get them on their way as happened to my partner in our Mazda 6 Sport when she hit a pot-hole last winter (Kwik-Fit supplied her with a Continental 225/45/18 @ an eye watering £190, we now have 3 cheaper tyres and a very expensive, because it was the only one they had Continental on the other corner) on this car,where the spare wheel should be is a great big chocolate teapot of a Bose sub-woofer stereo appendage (very flaming handy 
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I used to cover around 45-60,000 miles pa. for many years in company cars and probably had a puncture once every 6 months but always carried a spare (and a lamp, jack, wheelbrace and a warning triangle) so the statisticians on here might argue that for most motorists there is no need for a spare, but doing my own calculations it would have added around 75 hours to my journey times over the time I did that job for 14 years, I might need those 3 days back one day !
In short, there is no reason 95% of cars should not carry a spare…
Yes I can see the points made by Taff and Victor as both being valid and think the issue is one of choice.
By all means sell the car without a spare so long as there is a clear sticker inside the boot saying so - but - the car should have a wheel well and they should offer the spare or a can of goo for the customer to decide.
To sell cars like Mini and MX5 without a wheel well largely takes away the option of the customer using a spare and in some circumstances that is very inconvenient or even dangerous in remote areas.
my other car is a vuaxhall zafira, the most difficult headlight bulb replacement ive ever experienced. Oh...and its got no spare wheel.
Been driving 52 yrs now & only ever had 1 puncture in a motorcycle tyre which I repaired with a can of goo and got home OK,and only 2 in cars when I had a spare wheel.Never worried about a spare wheel on motorbikes,so will not worry in a car.
Reg.
…if you’d driven 30 miles along a busy motorway in a Nissan Micra
at 50 MPH you’d also want a full size spare…once is enough 
Nice one Taff, everyone should be able to do simple tasks like oil, water and tyre change. But those 4x4 wheels are heavy, not easy for a big guy like me…and not conducive to long varnished nails, there would be 
Yes but a proper farmers daughters can easily juggle a 4x4 wheel whereas the gym-bunnie types might struggle on Taff`s New Driving Test.
As an aside where I live there is a lady with a Toyota Landcruiser Amazon (the big one) who makes door to door deliveries most days, ding-dong Avon calling! Correct, this massive 2T+ beast of burdens only task in life is to deliver cheap cosmetics to pensioners - total lunacy. We also have two private schools nearby and twice a day a menagery of Range-Rover, Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes M-Class and XC90s driven by ladies who can barely see over the steering wheel, clog up the surrounding junctions as they allow each other in and out.
This is what is killing your polar bears Victor, not the spare wheels in the boot of a sensibly sized, aero-efficiant, non road-clogging car!
i dont agree with taff eunos on the spare wheel point but agree 100% on the high viz jacket etc. a yellow high viz costs £1.99 in my local market.
by the way, i reckon taff also lives in a very posh area with all those 4 x 4 ladies. 
You dont have to agree, just pass the test and you can have the group CT` on your licence - utopia! 
lol!
Not particularly posh really - Eddie Izzard, Rob Brydon and Ruth Jones (Nessa off Gavin & Stacey) were all schooled in the town.
Some of these, financed to the hilt, double-daily 4x4 private school run expeditions are 100 miles in total, with often just the one invariably spoiled child on-board, they require a parking space of at least 30ft each.
Which brings me to another thing - in the proposed new test for 4x4 CT candidates - during the test there will be a requirement for the candidate to reverse, at their own risk the 4x4 at a reasonable speed through a course of reinforced H beam steel bollards (black in colour and no taller than 3ft 6in) without the use of rear facing sonar/radar or lovely little colour/ monochrome TV cameras.
…and attend an off road driving course using their own vechicle. 
Used to cruise at a setady 70 in my wife’s micra! And the spare wheel had another function as well - as we found when the car was rammed by a rather heavy Citroeon Xantia. The Micra’s spare wheel well was oval and the boot floor was neatly folded, a bit like a handkerchief, and the wheel had absorbed some of the impact! Very neat I thought at the time 
How do you manage to be so lucky? We have a puncture about every 18 months - 2 years on either mine or my wife’s car. And that includes the MX5 (tally 1 so far). On average, each car we’ve had over the last 35 years has had 2 punctures during our ownership, and about half of those meant a holiday/day out would have been cancelled/disrupted had a spare not been available. Haven’t tried using the goo at the side of the road yet, but I’d be happier doing swopping the wheel and worrying about the repair later. Like I do on a bike - just swop the inner tube and carry on, then repair the damn thing later. (BTY I mean a proper bike wot you power yourself. not one of these namby-pamby things with engines!
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