I'm 80 miles from home and got another flat on my rear SO3. Properly replaced front / rear / spare...problem is how far can I go on the spare safely? Weather tomorrow when I head home from Del Water Gap to NYC tomorrow forecast is cool (+/-40's)w/ chance of rain. I will stay under 50 mph.

Can I make it home safely? Keep car light as possible? Have a patient friend drive shotgun? Need a new spare?
Thanks for any tips / comments...will check on borrowed laptop tonight.

BTW, flats seem to be more prevewlant w/ this car / tires - my 3rd in 27K in the metro NY area....20 yrs and over 200k in other cars I can't recall more than 2 flATS

 

you can make it home safely, Just drive very slow.

 

I forgot where I read this, but you want your REAR WHEELS to be the same....Am I correct anybody??

 

Dex9 is right. You want the *diameter* of the rears to be the same. Basically, if the diameters of the rear tires are different (say you replace a rear flat with the spare), then the differential gets a lot of stress on it as you drive straight, since one wheel is rotating faster than the other.

Our manuals say that if you have a flat rear tire, the procedure is to replace the front wheel with the spare, and replace the flat rear wheel with the front wheel. This ensures the rear wheels spin at the same rate when driving straight. It sounds like this is the procedure that Dex9 followed.

 

I drove 480 miles on my lil pizza-cutter without a problem...kept it under 55 the whole way. You'll be fine.

 

I agree about the flat problem being more common in my S2000 than in other cars. I think the stickier rubber picks up the bad stuff more easily than less grippy rubber.

 

Thanks all, I have more peace of mind heading home...

Any thoughts about the propensity towards flats? Just bad luck?
This last one came on a rear so3 w/ 1k on it, a big cone shape divit that was centered on the high point of one of the center grooves. I heard a pop and the fwop fwop...it's almost pinky size - odd, my last 2 flats were punctures by screws.

 

yup. last yr i got 3 screws in my tires within about 2 weeks. i was starting to think that someone was "screwing" with me... who knows - maybe they were. i also had a tendency at the time to be careless with staying centered on the road... till i realized there are alot more nails/screws/etc along the shoulder of the roads

good luck yo... you should be fine on the spare.