Spare Tire & Dealership

Hey all,

Through this rough winter, our roads here in Iowa have become pothole ridden. I've been vigilant about avoiding them but ended up hitting one obscured by water slightly too fast. I heard the iconic sound and instantly knew I had a flat on the front right wheel. Luckily, I was only three blocks from home so I made it there.

I was able to put on the spare last night without much issue (kudos to Toyota for a halfway decent kit!) I went to the dealer today to see what could be done. Decided to go there since I had to get my recall service done anyway.

The tire was unrepairable, as I predicted. I'm on a 2013 Persona with Toyo Proxes A20 (P215/45R17) and I've been happy with them so far. Unfortunately when I came back to the dealer, I got the bad news: they had none in stock and would have to order one--for $277! The other option was a cheaper tire, but these Toyos still have a lot of life in them only about 15k miles. I dediced to have them order the Toyo, so I drove my Prius back home.

I just have a couple of questions.

(1) My spare is making a light "whurrr" noise. Is this normal? Should I check anything with it?

(2) The manual says that the spare should be replaced with a normal tire "as soon as possible," but gives no restrictions on use other than to stay under 50mph. Since the new Toyo won't come until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, how much driving can I do at this point? I'm planning to minimize it, of course.

(3) Was it a bad idea going for the Toyo Proxes again?

Thanks for all your help. I'm worried about my baby!

 

I checked the manual time and time again about the placement of the spare and it never warned against use of the spare on the front axle except in snow and ice conditions.

To be honest, I think the dealer did a very cursory job with this and likely didn't look at the wheel much. From what I can tell, the wheel is still in good shape.

Needless to say, I'm not very happy with this dealership. This is the first time I've used them (just moved) and will likely not use them again.

 

Yeah, from what I've read that seems like a good idea.

Shouldn't be too hard to do, just will take some time with the baby jack included with the Prius.

Also, is it reasonable just to replace the one (flat) tire? My current tires don't have a lot of wear. The service people didn't say anything about having to replace any more than just the one.