Why Were The French So Much Better With Spare Tire Access?: Cold Start

Cs Pug404 Tire
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Changing a flat tire is one of those activities that you can almost always assume you’d rather not be doing. When you are doing it, it’s not unlikely that you’re doing it in non-ideal circumstances, on the side of a road or late at night or in crappy weather – you know the drill. That’s why I have so little patience for tire-changing-related bullshit, some of which I’ve mentioned before. When it comes to spare tires and changing tires, I think it’s up to the carmaker to do all they can to make the process as painless as possible. You know who seems to be pretty good at this? The French!

I say this because there’s at least a few examples of popular French cars that address a significant issue with changing tires: how to get access to the spare tire without having to unpack all the luggage and stuff in your trunk. Flats can definitely happen when you’re on a road trip, trunk all packed up with stuff, so when you have to change the tire, possibly in dark, shitty weather, you also have to unpack all your crap. It’s not great.

But the French offered solutions like that Peugeot 404 up there, which dropped the spare down under the rear bumper, or this Renault Dauphine, which could stick out its spare tire like a tongue:

Cs Dauphine Spare

The Peugeot 304 also had a similar under-car drop spare tire:

Cs Pug304 Tire

What I can’t figure out is why this was almost unheard of in American cars? Traditionally, American cars have valued comfort and convenience, often at the expense of pretty much everything else, so why couldn’t we ever be bothered to have a solution like one of these?

Am I forgetting a car that did this? I suppose the closest American cars have come to this spare-outside-the-trunk phenomenon are in pickup trucks, which often sling the tire under the bed, or in the often-absurd “Continental”-style spare tire kits, many of which ended up being like a back deck you could add onto your car:

Cs Continentalkit

That’s just ridiculous. You could stick a couple of lawn chairs on that thing. And, I think it makes luggage access even worse! Why did people do this?

 

 

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72 thoughts on “Why Were The French So Much Better With Spare Tire Access?: Cold Start”

  1. […]it’s not unlikely that you’re doing it in non-ideal circumstances[…]

    Hang on a sec…let me get my slide rule out to calculate all these double negatives. Do you want Skynet, Jason?! Because if we train AI language models on sentences like this, you’re gonna get some humanity-hating Skynet.

  3. Some French cars such as the 1st generation Renault 5 / Le Car stored the spar tyre in the engine bay

    https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Renault-5-engine.jpg

    I often wondered if the heat from the engine affected the rubber of the tyre? Especially as it was constantly the same spot on the tyre, perhaps causing the rubber to perish in that one spot. Which of course you only discovered when you had a puncture and needed your spare…

    Does anybody know?

      1. All my EA81s had the tire atop the engine/transmission. As did my carburetored EA82s-but I can’t remember if my fuel-injected XT (4-cylinder) did. For some reason I want to say the XT6 did not have the spare there, but I can’t back that up.

        To ThomasTheTank’s question, the few times I ever used a Suby spare, I never had an issue. What was more concerning to me at the time was the claim by someone on the Ultimate Subaru Message Board that the spare’s position was part of your crash-safety

    2. When I lived in the French Alpes I had two Fiat Panda 4×4, they also have the spare tyre under the bonnet, part of which is over the exhaust manifold and in over 200,000km never had a problem heat problems or degradation of the tyre. A point to note is although it can be cold in winter (easily below -20°C), in summer it can get above 40°C.

  6. I’m now reminded of another unusual solution – the Rover SD1’s usual spare position was under a false floor in the boot. But if you wanted to remove the false floor to use the full boot space there was a strap to hold the wheel upright behind the wheel arch. My father used to do this for holidays on ‘the Continent’ so there would be less to unload if we had a puncture plus the extra space fitted four (?) cases of wine from vineyard visits perfectly.

  7. My Chevy van and other GM trucks keep the spare between the rear frame rails where it’s held in place by a cranked cable and a safety latch. But the latch often gets clogged with grit and/or corrosion and will not release. The latch is above the tire where it’s extremely difficult to reach with some sort of tool you hope will break the latch free. You’re on your back under the tire when you’re doing that so that it smashes your face if it does release. I once drove five miles to a tire shop on a flat tire rather than wrestle with the spare on the side of the road. Unloading all your luggage to access the spare? Piece of cake.

    1. Came here specifically to say this. I spent so much time one afternoon trying to change a flat on my wife’s Tahoe that I made it a habit on my truck and her Tahoe to work that pulley at least once a year and to clean and lube all those bits that get stuck.

    2. Yup hanging under the vehicle is the worst place for a spare, at least if you actually need to use it. My F-250 has the under bed spare and to prevent theft they use a puzzle lock like some locking lug nuts. The first time I dropped it to check the pressure it wasn’t too bad getting, but getting it up was next to impossible due to all the dirt in and around it. Later I dropped the entire assembly cleaned out that puzzle lock and lubed up everything.

      As far as not having to unload your stuff that isn’t always the case with a spare that hangs down. In our SUV sure the tire and wheel are under the car but the jack, crank to get it down and the nut to turn to get it down are all under a panel in the cargo area, so yeah you are pulling out a lot of your luggage to change the tire and you have a dirty spare too.

    3. Unfortunately, Mercedes copied GM when deciding where to place and how to secure the Sprinter spare. The only clever thing Merc did was size the head of the elevator screw the same as the lug nuts, so one can use the same impact wrench socket to access the spare.

      1. Toyota did the same thing with the 2nd gen Sienna, but had to do a recall because likely too many people were using an impact and over-torqued the cable mechanism. The recall involved changing the elevator screw to a 5-pointed head.

    4. In my case, on my 1991 Explorer, the cable rusted out and the tire was ejected from the vehicle somewhere between Pittsburgh and Colorado…

      On my 2015 Promaster Van, every spring, when the snow tires come off, the spare tire is winched down to ensure it will winch down.. this year, when winching back up, the cable broke. At least this time, I didn’t loose the spare.

      Road salt and corrosion kill the cable systems.

  8. My first car was a 1984 Subaru GL, which put the spare right on top of the engine. A redneck friend of mine laughed mercilessly when I opened the hood for him.
    Much later in life, I had a Corvair, and like most Corvair owners, I kept the spare in the frunk instead of on it’s mount above the engine. If you didn’t keep a Corvair spare properly under-inflated, it was prone to heating up and exploding. Dig around the engine bay of any unrestored Corvair and I guarantee you’ll find tire bits.

    On the plus side, both were totally easy to access.

  9. The Peugeot 505 also had the spare beneath; you would wind it down with the lug wrench from inside the trunk.
    Great until some stupid 20-something (me) permanently installs a huge box with two 12-inch subs in the trunk. I honestly cannot remember how this was resolved in the end, but I am no longer on the side of the road so I must have done something or other.

    1. Renault Espace V has the spare same way, just checked. And the release bolt is just _next_ to subwoofer. Quite sure is rusted tight.

  11. Porschelump’s spare-hole is right at the back of the car, under the hatch. Usually it’d be covered with carpet, but honestly, it’s not a bad location at all. Up out of the way.

    I always worry about ripping off the ones stored underneath, even though I’d have to really get in trouble for that to happen on most of the cars that put them there. I also don’t really like that or the in-engine spare locations because it gets hot and dirty up in there? Like, really hot if it’s this week in Texas. Really, I think the 944’s far-rear position has it best.

  12. The Range Rover has a space saver that drops out from underneath, I know because I used it to put a disposable BBQ on when I was camping at Brands Hatch the other week.

    1. That’s an interesting use case I hadn’t considered.

      I liked the hand-cranked-winch approach to removing and storing the spare on the Range Rover Sport I had. Never had to change a tire on it, but needed to drop the spare in order to install the hitch receiver under the rear bumper.

  13. I once had to change a wheel on a Renault R4. There the spare is relatively easy accessible, mounted below the trunk. But to get it out you have to halfways crawl under the car. And can you imagine how this spare is looking after some years, exposed to water, ice and dust? The solution on the Dauphine is nice, but it is also very rust-friendly.

  14. Following on from my first epistle in praise of the Citroën DS, then number two on my list would be almost any Bristol motor car.

    The spare wheel and jack were located in a locker between the front wheel and the door. The wing hinged upwards to access the equipment. On the opposite side of the car, the locker contained the battery, fuses and on later models the audio amplifier.

  15. I can’t believe you did not mention the pinnacle of tyre changing:

    The Citroën DS

    Not only was everything under the bonnet (spare wheel at the very front, ahead of the radiator, the spare also helped duct the air and was part of a rudimentary crumple zone) but there was no manual jacking up of the car.

    To change a wheel: One selected the highest setting of the hydropneumatic suspension, then attached a proprietary type of axle stand to a location point on the side of the car, then selected the lowest setting of the hydropneumatic suspension, this then lifted both wheels on that side of the car off the ground. On the original DS (pre face-lift) the wheel was kept in place by a single captive nut in the centre of the wheel (just as they are in F1 today), so no nuts to lose on a dark stormy night.
    And remember… this is a car from the 50’s!

    2. You probably could do this with any of the hydropneumatic Citroens I would think. My XM had the ride height control so you could jack it right up in the air.

  16. We also have the Jeeps and other vehicles that have the spare attached to the rear liftgate (or door, if it swings that way). This offers convenient access to the spare and generally keeps it out of the road muck but often compromises rearward visibility to some degree.

    One of my goals is to have a Land Rover kitted out with (among other things) a spare on the hood/bonnet, like a safari vehicle.

  17. From what I’ve read about the condition of post-war French roads, they probably made the spares easy to get to because they were changing tires all the time. Same reason their cars ride so nicely.

  18. Best spare tire storage: Duesenberg Model J.

    Easy access, and stays pretty clean. Put a color matched cover in it, and it’s protected and looks classy.

    2. My brother had a 1930-something Imperial with a spare on each fender. My other brother was driving when a patch of ice sent him off-road, mashing a fender. Brother One looked all around for a replacement fender and discovered his Imperial was a special edition and that the smashed fender was impossible to replace because it had the second spare.

    1. Have the premier/dominate land army in the world for ~200+ years, and yet you do bad in one war, and suddenly you’re known for running and hiding.

      1. Don’t forget the Franco-Prussian War. Honestly, the French Army was usually in good shape as long as they didn’t fight Germans or that Wellington guy. I also give them a lot of credit for that epic comeback against Germany in WWI.

        1. If we want to go even further back, France was pretty dominate, or at least a major force to be reckoned with, dating all the way back to the Frankish Empire, though, that’s not “France” in the traditional sense, and certainly more of a predecessor. So there’s really a solid 1,000-1,500 years of at least being a highly regarded force.

          Even when they fought Germans in WWI they did fairly well. Sure, the Germans were a superior force than the French in a direct comparison, but the French were no slouches.

        2. “Honestly, the French Army was usually in good shape as long as they didn’t fight Germans or that Wellington guy.”

          Or the Russian winter.

  20. Panhard of France frequently had the best of both worlds with the Dyna Z and some of the later PL17s where they put the spare inside the trunk for protection from the elements & in its own compartment separate from the luggage and the requisite boxes stuffed full of random items, engine oil, and brake fluid (but not coolant, as post-war Panhards were air-cooled, ha.) Here’s an example, a 1957 Dyna Z, albeit sans aforementioned boxes:
    https://www.artcurial.com/sites/default/files/lots-images/2019-01-11-14/3888_10650328_10.jpg

  21. I carry tire plugs and a little 12v air pump. So far they’ve been all I need, but I still have a spare that I check regularly in case of catastrophic tire disintegration or sidewall damage.

  22. I did enjoy the old Subaru Legacy wagons from the 1980s. The spare was on top of and slightly behind the engine under the hood. It was reasonably clean there, easy to get to, easy to check condition/pressure, and hard to steal.

  23. In the rust belt, those undercar spares are ignored and forgotten until needed, then they either don’t work, are flat, or just plain missing (for a variety of not-good reasons). I too would rather unpack to get to a clean spare and functional tools.

  24. Putting the spare under the car does it indeed make it easy to get to, also for the toerags that stole the spare alloy wheel from my Citroën Saxo, then came back and stole the steel wheel I replaced it with. Then when I put a security bolt through the next spare wheel the padlock rusted seized because England + weather happend. So in the car is a much better option

    1. Spare wheel nicking in the UK got so bad at one stage that Peugeot did a free of charge mod to add a locking mechanism on 106s and 306s. You got a little yellow sticker saying as much underneath the number plate to frighten the toerags away. My father thought the wind-down system on the Austin Maxi was brilliant but he was the sort of person to wash his car every weekend so salt never got a look-in.

      1. My father similarly thought the Maxi system was great, but wasn’t so keen on washing. It was quite hard to get the spare out when needed.

  25. Spare tyres under the floor are rusty, dirty messes to deal with. I’d rather unpack and repack my car than spend another half hour slowly unscrewing 4 inches of rusty thread through a bracket.

    I can’t even remember which car that was on. Not one of mine, just helping someone at the side of the road. Karma still owes me for that one.

    1. Removing the spare tire, greasing a few bits, cleaning it, topping off the pressure, and putting it back once a year isn’t that hard.

      1. Spare tyres should be checked regularly, it’s stupid not to do so. I once had a rental with a flat spare tyre on a lonely highway on a cold rainy night. It was a long a miserable walk.

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