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I have now had 3 experiences of being completely fully flat on a runflat tire, and while its good peace of mind, Im still not sold on the tires I have. In concept, yes, but not the Contis my MB came with. One time, the entire side wall blew open from hitting. pothole so needless too say, I needed a tow. Would this have happened if the sidewall wasn't as still? Who knows. The second time, I had a regular puncture on a tire with a previous minor bulge, and I was about 15 miles from the nearest MB dealer which had my tire in stock. I immediately started hearing noises, but kept going, driving around 50mph on the freeway. Noise was getting progressively worse and by the time I got to the dealer, the bulge had burst and the tire obviously failed. And lastly, I had a regular puncture, no bulges on this one. Tire was making weird noises that didn't instill confidence. I limped to the nearest tire shop for a patch. Each time this has happened, I remember weird noises coming from the tire. Bulge there or not, these noises happen immediately. I am not sure how they can recommend people driving up to 50mph.
Back on topic, I think we have done a few threads on it in the past, but there are some experimental tire/wheel designs being tested that don't require any air at all.....they go beyond the run-flats. One of them is Michelin's Tweel:
]I have now had 3 experiences of being completely fully flat on a runflat tire, and while its good peace of mind, Im still not sold on the tires I have. In concept, yes, but not the Contis my MB came with. One time, the entire side wall blew open from hitting. pothole so needless too say, I needed a tow.
If you had a full-size spare tire, there is no need for a tow....then, you can at your leisure have the tire on your Lexus or whatever brand car you have replaced or repaired...the moment you go to run flat (with no spare) or smaller donut, you now create the immediate need to have tire replaced within a certain amount of time, or an immediate tow in the case or catastrophic run-flat failure...... I can't imagine taking an across American road trip, then getting a flat tire in the wonderful LC500 on a Saturday in a small, small town and then trying to get a replacement tire for the rear P275/35RF21 tires....it is definitely a different era today...the same trip doesn't get canceled or altered by driving the LX570
I think a lot of it is just the realities of the wheel setups of cars today. For instance, on that LC there isn't anywhere to put a full sized spare, and the wheel setup is staggered like you said. Those types of wheel setups used to be relegated to exotic high performance cars but thats not the case anymore, even pedestrian cars have large wheels and wide unusual tires.
For instance, on that LC there isn't anywhere to put a full sized spare,
Why not just mount it on the rear hatch-door, which used to be standard practice with a lot of SUVs? Yes, it makes the hatch-door itself a lot heavier, with problems raising it up and down....but that is overcome by having it open sideways, left or right. However, I suppose I might have just answered my own question, since the hatch-door, for safety-reasons, has to open in opposite directions for the British/Australian/ Japanese markets and right-hand drive, than in the rest of the world and its left-hand drive. So, you have more development and production costs with two different door/hinge mounting hardware-setups.
Because its ugly lol. Why would anybody want to have a huge spare tire on the back of a beautiful Lexus LC coupe? The LC also does not have a hatch, it has a small trunk:
I'll take my chances with a flat. Like I said here, I had my first flat while driving in 20 years, and I didn't even have to have the spare put on.
Because its ugly lol. Why would anybody want to have a huge spare tire on the back hatch of a beautiful Lexus LC coupe?
I'll take my chances with a flat. Like I said here, I had my first flat while driving in 20 years, and I didn't even have to have the spare put on.
OK, sorry about that...I think that's my bad. Perhaps I misunderstood the earlier post. I thought, by "LC", you were referring to the Land-Cruiser/Lexus LX, not the LC coupe.
For SUVs there are plenty of spaces to put spares, and I believe all serious SUVs still have full-sized spares. My Grand Cherokees did. Not on matching wheels like on my LS but thats understandable.
For SUVs there are plenty of spaces to put spares, and I believe all serious SUVs still have full-sized spares. My Grand Cherokees did. Not on matching wheels like on my LS but thats understandable.
they do you will ruin the four-wheel-drive system on an LX 570 or my 4RUNNER for example if you were to go to a smaller spare. Spare tire stuff as interesting as my four-wheel-drive vehicles have matching fifth wheel spares, they are supposed to be swapped in and out as a five tire change when you do your rotation. On the 15 4RUNNER, they still have A full size spare but they don’t use a matching rim anymore.
I totally get the idea behind having no spare on an LC 500. You’ll ruin the design and there is nowhere to keep it. And it’s kind of pointless if the wheels are staggered front to back
they do you will ruin the four-wheel-drive system on an LX 570 or my 4RUNNER for example if you were to go to a smaller spare. Spare tire stuff as interesting as my four-wheel-drive vehicles have matching fifth wheel spares, they are supposed to be swapped in and out as a five tire change when you do your rotation. On the 15 4RUNNER, they still have A full size spare but they don’t use a matching rim anymore.
I totally get the idea behind having no spare on an LC 500. You’ll ruin the design and there is nowhere to keep it. And it’s kind of pointless if the wheels are staggered front to back
Correct, and the same is true of sedans with AWD. Lexus goes as far as to tell you not to even have tires with different tread depths.
05-02-20, 02:58 PM
Perhaps I misunderstood the earlier post. I thought, by "LC", you were referring to the Land-Cruiser/Lexus LX, not the LC coupe.