Riding the spare

[mcaramb]

Blowout on the long 25mike basin bridge! Never had to ride my smaller spare tire such a long distance. Am I fubarrung my tod drivetrain?

The difference in tires sizes is large as we know, so I'm only cruising at 45mph but it's hating every minute of it. Should I stop and pull over?

[VxSport]

sounds like your coming off trail now.... uh. the spare needs to be on the front. If I remember correct. Always best on the front.

[mcaramb]

Ok just juggled the tire to the front... Only went 15 miles with spare on rear.mucho better! No discernible damage or noise from rear end, so looks like I'm good. Thanks!

[MSHardeman]

I don't think that there would be any damage to the rear end, but the TOD WILL throw a fit if one of the tires is smaller, or has lower air pressure, than the others. VXSport is correct in that the odd sized tire needs to go on the front where it will give the TOD less of a headache. The smaller tire in the rear will trick the TOD into thinking that one of the tires is slipping so it will try to throw power to the front wheels, constantly, which will make the transfer case engage and disengage all the time.

Only problem now is that if your tires have some pretty significant wear on them buying a new tire could cause you the same problems as running the spare in that the new tire will be bigger than the other three.

[JAMAS]

15 minutes to get an answer that helped someone on the road.....this forum is awesome!

[Vendetta]

Completely awesome! I wish it was around when I had my spare on the passenger rear corner for 50 miles - at speed, even - back in 2001... TOD was going full plaid on me. A dozen years later, still going strong so I wouldn't waste a single worry on having damaged your setup. You didn't.

-V