How to - Living without a spare...

For rotating tires, this works champion for me. You need a level slab, preferably in a garage, a decent floor jack, and four jack stands:

1. Loosen all lug nuts, slightly.
2. Raise the front (using front jacking point) and put in jack stands*.
3. Raise the reary (using rear jacking point) and put in jack stands.

If you're gonna get a spare and just lay it loose your options are wide open. You could just get a steel rim and a utilitarian tire in 195/65R15, with a regular valve, no TPMS. Even in the States where TPMS is mandatory you shouldn't get push-back on that: there's not TPMS on the temp spare normally.

I've used this steel rim with snow tires, it's compatible:

Corolla steel rim, part no: 42611-02471 (2006+ model year?)
Good, cheap LRR tire: Bridgestone Ecopia EP20

* I don't like putting jack stands on the proscribed scissor jack points, as described in the Owners Manual. They're unreinforced, very flimsy. Prefer the points marked in red


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1. Yeah, you could also get a compact spare. The main issues, they're not that much smaller, and might actually be more expense to obtain. There's a few threads here on that.

2. I edited my post a bit after your quote. There's "some" risk, mainly the stability of your jack stands. And that's where Toyota's proscribed jacking points fall short. Take a look at the pic, the front points I use are much more stable/solid.

I've raised a variety of vehicles this way over the years, never a problem. One thing to be careful of: if your slab is not quite planar, you can find when you put all four jackstands on you're actually only making solid contact on three of them. Just be cognisant of this, have some shim material on hand, to make sure all four make solid contact.

 

I carry a full sized spare and low profile floor jack and 4 way lug wrench behind the drivers seat..i hate the tiny jack and tire that comes with the cars now...if you get one at all..what good is a can of fix a flat and bike air compressor going to do?

 

The scissor jack works, I've tried it once on the front end, for practice, and once with an actual flat, on the rear.

I'd be reluctant to carry the extra weight of a floor jack, and not just for the weight: I wouldn't want to be sharing the cabin space with it in a roll-over. I guess the same goes for a loose spare tire, say in the hatch area.

I say the scissor jack "works", but man-o-man: Toyota seems to have gone out of their way to find a lousy one. It's frustrating: the linkage point where you hook up the torsion bar is a cast, single eye design. Much better are the stamped metal, dual-eye designs, much more stable as you turn.

Until (if ever) Toyota manages to fit a temp spare in the plug-in, I wouldn't touch it.

 

i purchased a used compact spare and keep it on the back deck. it takes some searching here and patience to learn what's compatible, and find a good deal. a new one from toyota runs about $450., i got mine for $100.

 

I purchased a used OEM alloy rim to mount a full-sized spare and then modified the plastic tub so that the full sized spare fits under it the way the original space-saver spare does. Have used scissors Jack and then modified it for better stability. (2012 hatchback) rim cost was $100 on eBay.

 

any thoughts jack?