I am posting this here rather than the tire forum since I would guess more people look in this forum and I feel the warning is something to consider.

I had a blowout yesterday with my 94F250 supercab long bed. I do not know if the spare tire carrier is the same on all Fords, but I believe that the carrier was a contributor to the blowout.

First I will say that my truck handled marvelously during the blow out, other than noise and a rumble to truck handled fine and did not cause any difficulty from 60mph to a stop. Of course I followed the normal instructions about blowouts, ie don't slam on the brakes.

The reason I feel the carrie is a contributor is that the tire tha blew out was in the carrier for maybe 10-20K miles and then I swapped it onto the truck about 2 years ago, the tire was used when rotated in since I bought the truck used. When the tire was put on the truck I noticed there were notches(almost un noticable) on the sidewall where the carrier had pressed against it for so long. I didn't really think much about it at the time. A couple weeks back and probably 10K miles of travel on the truck, I noticed that the notch was more pronounced. In 20/20 hindsight I now know that was a warning. I don't drive the truck much, but noticed over the past couple weeks and maybe 100 miles, that the truck seemed to need a balance job, another warning.

Well yesterday it blew out. Looking it over after the fact, it looks like the sidewall split right where the notch was. So I would recommend inspecting the spare and also not tightening up the carrier too much.

One gripe, I really hate the design of the tire carrier. I think Chevy and most rice burners have a nice simple quick to drop the tire method. On the Ford we have to turnt hat silly little eye bolt almost forever and then we have to remove that stupid plastic cone which takes even longer. Jeez. My old riceburner just had a crank that your turned a few times and the tire was on the ground ready to use.

So FWIW, Check your spare and make sure you don't overly tighten the carrier.

Jim Henderson

 

 

Thanks Jim. Great advice and that reminds me that I need to check the pressure on my spare too!

 

I make it a point to check my tire pressure on the spare at least once a year (yes, I do have a life - most of the time). However the bit about the stress mark on the sidewall is well taken. It wouldn't be a bad idea to drop it down enough to rotate the tire a touch.

It's one of those things that is easy to blow off - until you need it, then you really need it. ;-)

 

I was always taught to rotate the tires (including the spare) every six thousand miles, or every other oil change. The way that I was taught to rotate is in the following order (for radial tires):

drivers side: front to back and back to front.

Passengers side: spare to rear and rear to front and front to spare.

hope this helps,
dj

 

And if you have an Aerostar, check the cable that holds the spare up under the rear. Mine was so rusty it was only a matter of time until it dropped off. I posted in the Aerostar forum and a guy reported having one drop off his Aerostar and bounce through the front window of a pickup truck (nobody hurt).

I think it would be better to get those nailguard tires and forget the spare.