16" Spacesavers - Bad Idea?

[Jack]

In my pursuit of asking all the questions everybody might ever think to ask, it occurred while idly discussing my tyres with the local tyre shop that a 16" radial tyre is available to buy for about £30 each.

The guys pointed at an old spacesaver and we had a bit of a laugh about it. But then I got to thinking - there must be a reason why we can't use these on our cars, but with a max speed rating of 50mph I don't think I'll be getting over that in the Bradford, and being brand new modern radial tyres should be as reliable as most of the aging crossplies on cars at the moment.

They are marginally lower profile, which will reduce ride height a little, but designed to be inflated to slightly higher pressure than "normal" tyres.

So far my reasons against it as a theory are:

Putting tubes into tyres not designed to have tubes inside them - from memory this is legal and ok, but I'm not exactly an authority on these things.

Less tread depth - as standard a spacesaver doesn't have as deep a tread as a normal tyre, but given the very limited mileage most of us are doing in our cars that doesn't seem to be a major issue, a spacesaver would of course quickly wear out on a two tonne modern car doing 10K+ miles a year, but on a Bradford?

Build quality/standards - I have no idea what standard spacesaver tyres are built to, but gut feel is that if you can drive a much heavier modern car on one for hundreds of miles, why not a Javelin or Bradford which is much lighter and not subject to anything like the same forces?

Wet weather performance - surely it has to be better than a crossply?

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

Jack - I wouldn't say its a bad idea at all - its absolutely bonkers - why would people think that they can travel about on these things for hundreds of miles beats me - they are manufactured to get you home and nothing more - they are made up of half the ply thickness of a standard tyre - don't take my word for it - clink the link below and see what popular mechanics advised:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/ho ... re-7710515

Same rule applies for the motorists who think that the 25 year old tyre with cracked sidewalls on their classic is fine because it still holds air !! - and it doesn't matter because they are only doing fifty miles round trip to a show - absolutely barking mad !!

It's not just your own life that you put in danger - its the other motorist / pedestrian that you hit when the tyre goes pop !!

[Jack]

Ah, so the build quality argument has more to it than suspected.

I would have thought it is a better option than using a 10 year old crossply, but then nobody should be reccomending that either!

The search goes on for a moment of genius. I suspect that probability will come into it eventually, and I will chance across a brilliant solution to a problem. Perhaps.

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

[quoteThe search goes on for a moment of genius. I suspect that probability will come into it eventually, and I will chance across a brilliant solution to a problem. Perhaps.][/quote]

Just a call to Longstone Tyres is all it takes - the UK specialist supplier of fit for purpose tyres for classic vehicles - link below

http://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/

Why reinvent the wheel when the solution is already available