Flat Tire Today

In 39 years of driving I've only had one flat, a bent rim, that pumping up the tire couldn't get me home. As you say most flats are slow leaks caused by nails.

I wish my gen 4 had storage for an inflator. I also have a compact spare. Nothing wrong with that, the donut will get you home or to a tire shop. The only problem is changing a tire on the highway. Depending on conditions you might not have stable level ground and you've got inattentive drivers shooting by you. Your wife was lucky a police officer stopped.

I would just keep the compact spare and add a good 12v inflator like Viair. Your gen 2 has plenty of storage for this.

 

Does this help?

How to Install a Full Size Spare | PriusChat

 

i don't carry a spare because i get flats all the time, i carry it for emergencies. same reaso i had life insurance when my kids were young.

 

yes, compact, sitting on the deck whenever i'm beyond 'honey can you grab the spare and bring it to me' range. a full size is just a bit bigger, so, other than they might be easier to come by, doesn't seem worth it.

 

Not sure, with our 3rd gen it's not quite fitting, rides a little high, not really worth the trouble. Our car came with this belt, and the Owner's Manual has an instruction on using the belt to secure the tire in the hatch area, using the D-ring strong points:



Regarding changing the tire by the side of the road, there's a suggestion in our Owners Manual, to use a pair of wheel chocks on the tire diagonally opposite the flat. Toyota doesn't supply such (would be nice if they did), but that's something you can pick up and stow in the under floor tray. Another good item to bring along is a smallish square of plywood, to put under the scissor jack when using on loose dirt or gravel.

 

and a breaker bar.

 

Yeah I guess, if someone else is rotating your tires. I've found body shops the worst, torque them like the hinges of hell. Tire places seem to have wised up, use the torque specifications. I did notice a Costco employee just going around the circle with a torque wrench, not doing the star pattern.

 

Wife had a flat this morning, also.....must be Labor Day as we have to labor over tires.

She left to visit sister and about one minute later the phone rang. Had a suspicion it would be her because we had our first cold night last night in several months and I figured one of the tires might just go under the TPMS threshold.

Anyway, she said she'd drive back home, I did not think to ask her if she checked the tires. As she pulled into the driveway, rear driver's side was totally flat.

Ah, well, she was going to get new tires next month anyway.

As for the spare, we have used it several times and it has always been fine -- I did check it this morning and it was down to 50 PSI, that took my little Husky "home depot" air pump a few minutes to get it up to 60 PSI. Hadn't checked since last winter (yeah, I am bad).

All the other tires were also down a couple of pounds.

Finally, torqued the spare to 76 ft lbs and will order new tires in the morning -- just not sure whether to go with the Conti True Contact for $470 or a General Altimax RT43 non-lrr for $120 less. My tire dealer is really pushing the Generals.

 

if you don't care about mpg's, go with the generals.

 

Hope that thing rattling around in your tire isn't the TPMS unit. Did the tire go completely flat to the rim?

 

I deleted this because it somewhat was a thread hijack.

I started a new thread on Fred's./

Sorry, Wjtracy.

 

Interesting!

Is there any code on a TPMS sending unit to say how old it is (like on tires)?

What model TMPS did you get and did it require activation?

 

There is a video of a guy replacing a TPMS battery, I think for a Corvette. You might try digging through all that potting stuff to see if the Toyota battery could be replaced. Think I'll save my old TPMS sensor as a project to do when I need an excuse to not do something else...