Speaking of Michelins, I bought a new 2019 Buick Envision for my wife that had Michelins on it. After 30k they were worn out, the guys at Discount said that particular one had been discontinued for those reasons it was supposed to been 50k. I had new Michelins with a sharp v tread on them and so far the are doing well.........

150,000 miles and I have yet, to lube the spare tire mechanism. They don’t use salt on the roads here. On the other hand, it took me 45 minutes to figure out how to lower the spare. Eventually, I consulted the manual and found there was a special anti-theft socket needed. Fortunately, that was in my glove box.

The Michelins that came with the truck lasted 22,500 miles. I’m ordering my 6th set of tires today. I’ve had 2 sets of Goodyear Wrangler ATs w/Kevlar, a set of Toyo HTs, and the current set of Cooper AT/3 XLTs that were supposedly designed for diesel pickups. The Toyos lasted the longest at 35,000 miles, but they were awful, squirmy handling tires and absolutely made towing my 5th wheel miserable.

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There's not a TPS monitor in the donut spare.

You can buy a TPMS BT sensor to mount to the stem of any tire, motorcycle, truck, spare tire.

They come in sets generally of 2 or 4, so you could put one one the spare in two cars, and monitor it with your phone, the apps have thresholds you can set to alert you of low pressure.

Link

I do every 6 months, at same time as a calendar reminder to prompt me to recharge the portable jump starters in each car and check air pressure on all tires. Fall and six months later.

Even though my goofy kids are 30-ish, I do take the opportunity to remind them each time as well. Figure if they heed that half the time still better than nothing!

I've thought about it but always dismiss it. one because I have to lower it out from under the SUV and two, mine has a built in compressor/inflator from the factory.

Have a donut spare for both vehicles. The Corolla is my airport car and the employee lot is 24 miles from the house. I honestly don't check that spare too often. The Venza, on the other hand, is my "road trip" vehicle when I go up to mother's. I check the tires, to include the spare, and under the hood before hitting the road on the 466+ mile round trip journey.

I had a flat just this week . Fortunately I pulled into a parking lot right across from my house. I called AAA (figured I have it, why not use it ?) and they took so long to get there that I changed it before The truck arrived. When the driver arrived I had noticed my spare only had 20 of the sixty pounds it should have. The driver said he didn’t have an air compressor on his truck!!!
I drove the car the 50 yards to my driveway and I filled up the tire . On a busy highway, a flat spare equals big problems. Check the pressure in your spare.

My F150 is the only one of our three cars that has a spare. Now I need to go check it tomorrow morning.

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Originally posted by 41:
If you run Michelin tires, you don't need no stinking spare.

Exactly! And what spare tire?

I would also like to suggest that if you have locking lug nuts on your wheels, make sure you know where the key is.

To prepare for state inspection, I looked for mine the other day. I could not find it. I checked with the wife and she had no idea - we always put them in the same place in the vehicle, but it was nowhere to be found.

Then I remembered we had new tires installed a couple of months ago. It looks like we never got the key back from the installer. If my wife had gotten a flat or a blow-out, she would have been stranded on the side of the road.

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I would also like to suggest that if you have locking lug nuts on your wheels, make sure you know where the key is.

I made a practice long ago of physically returning the key with the invoice when the car was completed.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to have checked my dinky donut spare, as I actually needed it, the first time since 2008. I have road service through my insurance, but since I was on a freeway, with a wide shoulder so I could be out of the traffic lane and a hard surface for the little scissor jack to rest on, I changed the tire myself in ~15 minutes.

I had an inspection station keep my key many years ago. I had the key code in my safe and ordered a new key for $25.

I check my spare tire a couple times a year.

Before my new set of tires, I had some Pirelli Cinturato P7 Run Flat Radial Tires on my WRX and hit something in the road and had a catastrophic blowout! I was just barely able to get the car safely off the road.

I put my spare tire on, and it looked a little flat. I changed them air pressure and it was 48psi. I was just down the road from a Service station and slowly drove the half mile to it and filled it to 60psi.

ARman

Nice thing about the Wrangler is the spare tire is outside. So when I fill up my tires, getting to the spare is super easy.

I refuse to use a locking lug nut. Nobody wants my factory rims.

I check spares whenever I check the others, quarterly at least, or prior to road trips, unless something looks low. I’ll check with the TPMS regularly for the 4 on the ground.

I keep an air compressor and a jump box in my car and my work car.

AAA takes forrrrever. Between the wife and I, we’ve probably had 4 flat tires in the last 2 years. Lots of construction in the area, equals lots of screws/nails finding themselves in the roadway!

AAA may take forever but they are half the cost of a tow if you call yourself.

I actually permanently removed a 'spare' tire from a vehicle recently.

The Audi S5 that my son drives originally came with 19" Wheels, and now sports 20" x 10.5" Wheels. I had deal with/replace the High Pressure Fuel Pumps two weeks ago and needed to charge the Battery, as well as remove the ECU as part of the troubleshooting process. The car also has an Air Lift Performance air suspension system and the tank & control module/valve is mounted in the trunk, while the air lines are routed in/through the spare tire well where the battery is also located. As a result, it's VERY tight in there and removing/stowing the spare is a bit of a pain.

Once everything re: the HPFPs was resolved ($1075 later), I was wondering whether the Compact spare was even worth the headache. I placed it next to one of the rear wheels and discovered it was 1" smaller in diameter, and then checked fit in the trunk, only to realize that even the compact spare wouldn't fit in the trunk due to the air tank, valve, etc in there. Even if the spare was in the car, there'd be no place to put the flat tire/wheel anyway as it's MUCH bigger, and there's NO way it's going in the back seat! As such, if he has a tire/wheel issue on the side of the road, somebody's coming (likely me) with a spare and a real jack anyway, or it's gonna get towed/flatbedded back home.

Spare? I have run flats . My lease is up later this year. My current car is no longer made, so I am forced to buy it [Not terrible since the residual is just under $20k and it's worth $35k, $1k more than the price I negotiated to base the lease off of]. I'll be getting non run flats, plus a spare and jack. The tires should improve handling since run flats are much heavier. Did I mention I HATE run flats? 3 cars I leased had them, replaced 21 tires in 96k miles total!

15 years ago I had a BMW 328 that came with run flats and I always felt the car rode a little harsh. When I replaced them with conventional tires the improvement was dramatic! There wasn't a spare so I just tossed a couple cans of Fix-a-flat in the trunk and fortunately never needed to use them.

For a while my wife and I were going on a cruise every six month. Checking the spare tire was part of checking the car before the trip to the port.
We still check the spare but not as much.
We do each have a mini compressor that works off the cigarette lighter in each car.