rear wheel doesn't fit in spare wheel well

[noworyz]

This sucks - had a flat, and the rear wheel (20" 315) doesn't fit in the back. It's bad enough that i had to unload the car on the side of the freeway, but it took me 10 minutes extra to figure out that the floor pieces do not fit over the wheel as you would expect them to. After just floating the pieces above the wheel (not anchoring them down), the floor raised almost 4".
This is just bad design - how can you design a wheel well that doesn't hold your largest OEM wheel?
To top it off, i had to drive 50mph on a ridiculous spare for 2 hours!
Anyone with possible solutions ...? Do 20" run-flats work?
(This is now my biggest issue with the X5!)

[Last5oh]

Originally Posted by noworyz

This is just bad design - how can you design a wheel well that doesn't hold your largest OEM wheel?

That's nothing new, many cars today with the space saver spare do not have enough space in the wheel well to hold a regular sized tire. You wouldn't need the space saver tire if it did.

My X5 has a 17" spare in case any of the 18" tires needs to be changed. The dealer explained that that was usually the case. It would seem that the implicit idea is that the spare tire is a temporary in most cases good enough to get you to the next service area.

[noworyz]

I guess i can understand that.
For the MDX and ML320 (which have under-mounts), it wasn't an issue. For the Montero, it was an exterior mount, so it wasn't an issue. In all those cases, the wheels could fit in the spare wheel well - in spite of the donut provided.
However, in the X5 (at least for the 4.8is with 315(s)) - the wheel is just too big. The spare is just a 155. For a utility vehicle, one would think it would be more accommodating. Especially considering that 20", wide, low-profile tires are not widely available. It kind of forces you to stick the main roads and avoid country roads ... i love my car, and i love driving it, but it does best on the country roads - the freeways are just too boring for it!

[XFactr]

Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought I saw someone on board w/ a 20 in full size spare. It may have been the front though?

[///MB]

Sorry to hear about your frustration. Would you rather have a full size spare and a 10 gallon gas tank?

I doubt the front 20" will fit in that space. Run flats do work, but if you are out of air, you're not supposed to go over 50mph in them either. Also, they are more expensive and give a harsher ride due to the stiffer sidewall. Either way, flat run-flats or spares are only meant to be used temporarily.

[XFactr]

I can't say for sure, because I haven't tried it. But this guy seems to have gotten the full size 275/40R20 in there.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-items...ull+size+spare

[Sonic0075]

At least our X5's come with a spare! My R32 didn't come with any spare tire

[X5 Meister]

You sure about that? Check out the trunk photo in this thread:
http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-items...ull+size+spare

Looks like he fit a front 20" in there! Amazing because I couldn't fit a 19" rear when I needed to.

In any case, as far as I know all the X5's came stock with 17" full size spares with the exception of the 'is models which have space saver spares that are 19". The advantage of the 'is models is that since the wheel is so much smaller you have a nice storage area under the load floor. If you don't mind losing that area, you'll have to strip out all the space saver mounting parts and the trunk floor to stick in a full size 20" front in there like that guy did.

The largest full size space I've seen fit without any modification is 18".

[X5Flyboy]

it's stories like this that makes me happy I have a full size 17" style 130 spare in my 2001 - I've also seen what was left of a runflat tire & wheel when a new 760 had to drive back from Yellowstone (100+miles) - the tire gave up shortly after 50 miles (when they say 50, they mean 50) - new wheel & tire cost the over $500 even after getting a discount

[iredlinemy///m3]

My owners manual says nothing about driving 50 on the spare... in fact it says to stay under 130mph when driving on the spare.

I have an '05 4.4l, I believe it has a 17 inch spare.