Alternative Spare Tire

I guess I just don't understand why you want to pay $75 for a bag.

That kit is $335 for tire, wheel, tools & bag.

Through Toyota(Lewis Toyota) and TireRack, you can get the wheel, tire, and tool kit meant for your vehicle for $260.

It's obviously your money to spend, but...

$97.20 - Yokohama Y870B 145/90D18
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Yokohama&tireModel=Y870B&partnum=49MD6YOTEMP&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes
$72.09 - Spare Wheel - 42611-21280
Wheel | Part #4261121280 | Toyota Auto Parts
$90.26 - Tool Kit for the Prime - 09105-47020 (seriously overpriced, so maybe find a similar used set on eBay to save even more?)
Box Set, Jack

Then all you need is a bag to carry it in.

Oh, and you'll need to pay to have the tire mounted on the wheel. I think I was charged $10 by a local tire shop; or maybe it was $20. Actually, I think it cost $10 to mount the replacement spare on my old car, but the new car spare cost me $20 because it also needed a valve stem.

 

Great info, thanks.

The rim you linked is for a full sized spare, correct? Is there an easy way to find the toyota part number for a rim (or complete wheel) that is a narrower temporary spare with an 5/6/7 spoke aluminum rim that would fit a '24 prius prime SE ? Most important is to find a temporary spare that is identical (or nearly so) in diameter to my stock wheels.

Thanks for the help.

 

No, that was for the Toyota donut spare that fits on the Prius. The wheel is a 16x4 and you fit it with a 145/90/16 tire that has a diameter right between the 195/60/17 and 195/50/19 stock sizes. All of the spare wheels(Toyota, Modern Spare, etc.) are typically around 4" wide and mount a 135 or 145 width tire.*

No spare of any size fits under the cargo floor of the Prius Prime. Any spare you have in the car will have to be above the floor or in the back seats. The regular Prius can fit a donut spare under the cargo floor(easily in the case of the XLE and LTD, with a little modification in the case of the LE), but can't fit a full sized spare.


* Stock 17" diameter = 26.2"
Toyota: 16x4 with 145/90/16 = 26.3" (+0.4%)
Modern Spare: 18x4 with 135/70/18 = 25.4" (-3.1%)
EZ-Spare (3 choices on their website)
- 1. 17x5 with 145/80/17 = 26.1" (-0.4%)
- 2. 17x5 with 165/70/17 = 26.1" (-0.4%)
- 3. 18x4.5 with 125/80/18 = 25.9" (-1.1%)

Widths:
125 = 4.9" (EZ-Spare 3)
135 = 5.3" (Modern Spare)
145 = 5.7" (Toyota, EZ-Spare 1)
165 = 6.5" (EZ-Spare 2)

You could also put a 135/90/16 on the Toyota wheel to get you 5.3" wide and 25.6"(-2.3%) in diameter

 

I am not sure if you'll know but you seem fairly knowledgeable. Does most spares have the same centre bore? 5th gen should be 60.1mm but I've seen a few other car's spares that would work but in theory their centre bore is 67.1. I'm not sure if there's some standard with spare wheels or you'd need something like hub rings.

 

No, spare wheels have many different center bores. The Prius uses one of the smaller bores out there at 60.1mm. The 3rd party spares(ModernSpare, EZ-Spare, etc.) tend to use larger bores so they can fit as many cars as possible.

If you end up using a wheel with a bore bigger than 60.1mm, you really should use a hubcentric ring with it. If you order from one of the 3rd party companies, the kit should come with the correct ring. If you're sourcing a wheel yourself, you'll need to get the correct one yourself(they're pretty cheap).

Again, this is one of the reasons I like using the OEM-specced wheel; don't have to worry about any of this. Don't need to worry about hub rings, don't need to worry about different bevel angles on the lug nuts. Just put it on and go.



Total side note...

I was checking out some of the FAQ pages at ModernSpare. They were trumpeting how much better their spare was because it was designed to be as close as possible to the OEM tire diameter and that the tire they used had a DOT M rating so it could be driven at highway speeds and for longer distances. There was all this blather about how good their tire was and massive inferences about how bad traditional compact spares were.

So I looked up the tire they were using. It did, in fact, have a rating of 104M. Then I looked at all the 145/90/16 spare tires that you would use with the OEM Toyota wheel. Every one had a rating of 106M. They were actually rated for the same speeds and even higher weight loads than the one ModernSpare uses. And the OEM spare tire is way closer to the full-size tire diameter than the ModernSpare choice is. The only benefit to the ModernSpare tire is that it's a radial when the 16" tires are all bias-ply. But the 16" tires have the same speed rating and better load ratings, so...