Mel B Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 Hi gang Our new motorhome doesn't come with a spare wheel so we're looking into getting one - can't bear the thought of going abroad on holiday and being stuck because of a flat! Our base vehicle is going to be a Mk 7 Ford MWB FWD 2.2 140bhp and the tyre is a Continental 215/75R R16C, but I don't know how many studs it is so not sure which wheel to get! Does Anyone know? 8-) As an aside, whilst looking at what I could spend some of my Tesco vouchers on as I've got some which are going to 'expire' in May, I noticed that Nationwide Autocentre are listed so thought I'd change the vouchers so I can use them there and get the wheel and tyre from them (they can get them from Ford and put the appropriate tyre on), better to pay 25% of the actual cost in vouchers than the whole cost! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted March 20, 2010 Author Share Posted March 20, 2010 Just managed to find a photo of a Ford van showing the wheels more clearly, so I assume it will be a 5 stud wheel .... I think! 8-) But another question - would it make much difference if the spare wheel was a narrower tyre, such as a 175 or a 195 instead of a 215/75R R16C? I'm thinking that as we'd only want it as a spare, we might be able to get away with a narrower one (like the space-saver ones you get with some cars). What do you think???? :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Decorator Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 But how far might you be required to drive with an unbalaced 'set'? If you are on the last day of a spell away and its 2,000 miles home you may be tempted to ?? Personally I would keep to all the same types. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverback Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 hi mel get the proper spare, corect size an all! i say this cos my mate on a trip back from scotland approx 300 mile, had a puncture put the space saver on and drove back, thinking no more about it, he was in a subaru 4x4 the diff went! cos of the inbalance as previously mentioned. when he went to the garage for repair under warrenty subaru said why you driving all them miles! on a space saver they are not designed for that!(so what are they designed for then?)the bill was £3000 it took him a year to get his cash back!! as you are getting a new van(so jealous) 3 year warrenty an all you dont need to give them any reason to get out of anything get the correct size! stick it in the new garage !! if you have the weight with your scooters :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chas Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Hi Mel- Dont forget your friendly breakers yard, you know its a 5stud 16" rim,check around and see whats available, a good clean down and a coat of Hammerite will save you a fortune, money that can be spent on fuel. Have a new tyre fitted and balanced by all means, then stow it away and like most folk, hope you never need it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave G Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Don't forget about the weight of the spare wheel and how much it will reduce your load allowance. We have just gone through the pain of getting the vehicle weighed and then removing all the gear that we could hopefully do without to become legal.... :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Mel, How much do they want if you have the spare as an option, as they often credit you with the price of the repair kit making it cheaper than sourcing one yourself. My daughter just brought a new car I persuaded her to pay the £45 for a spare in lue of a repair kit, she had the car less than 24 hours and got a puncture in the shoulder on of the front tyres which can't be repaired cheapest we could get a new tyre of the same spec was £93. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnP Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 The wheel is a five stud. Rim size 5 1/2J x 16 x 56 (I think the last two number 56 are correct but the stamping isn't clear on my Ford wheels) Tyre size 215/75R 16C Suggest you get the same size and matching tyre specification. Undersizing may give different handling characteristics with a heavy vehicle. If you are lucky the Ford mounting system for the spare will already be on the chassis (underneath near-side between front and rear wheels) It is a wind up system using a flexible wire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 My spare is in the garage. have puntureseal in all wheels and fingers crossed. you could always just carry a spare tyre..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 This is, I think, the Ford part number for the wheel: F4444369 (at least, that is the number on the invoice). Cost, in August 2007 £55.94 + VAT (Ford main dealer). I No 215/75-16 Continental Vanco 8PR tubeless tyre, with valve, fitted and balanced, by ATS, £136.13 inc VAT, also in August 2007.We made a calico bag for the wheel + tyre, because the carbon black from the tyre marked the "garage" floor of the van, where it lies flat (just!) and is restrained by a ratchet cargo strap from Halfords.Weight of wheel and tyre: 25Kg. Don't drop in on your tootsies! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 I think that a narrow tyre suitable as a temporary spare would not have the weight imposed by a Motorhome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted March 21, 2010 Author Share Posted March 21, 2010 Thanks guys, will stick to the proper size of tyre but try to get a second hand rim, if not we'll have to bite the bullet and buy a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Mel: As flicka advises, any tyre that's usefully narrower than the standard 215/75 profile won't have an adequate load-carrying capability. For example, a 215/75 R16C Continental Vanco-8 has a load-index of 113 (1150kg maximum tyre load), whereas Vanco-8 175/75 R16C or 195/75 R16C tyres have load-indices of 101 (825kg) or 107 (975kg) respectively. You could use a narrower tyre with a higher 'ply rating' (eg. Continental's 205/75 R16C Vanco-10), thus providing a similar load-index to an 8-ply rated 215/75 tyre, but this would only save 10mm in width. I believe the wheels used on the Transit Mk 6 were carried over to the Mk 7 unchanged (though the tyre-valve design was altered). If this is so (a Ford agency should be able to say for sure), there should be plenty of second-hand wheels available from breakers. If you see the spare wheel being carried just for emergencies and used only temporarily (ie. equivalent usage to a car 'space-saver'), then a second-hand wheel and any legal same-size tyre may be OK. However, if you envisage buying a brand-new tyre to match the originals, you'd probably be better off obtaining a brand-new wheel too. That way you could be confident the wheel would be in perfect condition and you could then happily rotate all 5 wheels to maximise tyre-tread life. (You might want to explore with the dealership supplying your motorhome the possibility of them providing you with a spare wheel at trade price.) Are you absolutely certain your Chausson will come with Continental Vanco-8 tyres? Most FWD Ford-based motorhomes seem to have these as original equipment, but I have occasionally seen 'camping-car' tyres fitted from new. It would be galling to buy a Vanco-8 tyre now and, when your motorhome arrives, find it's shod with VancoCamper or tyres made by Goodyear/Michelin/Pirelli, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GypsyTom Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 My Hobby Van Exclusive L, which I picked up yesterday, is on a Ford LWB and it has Continental Vanco tyres. Thank you for giving me an excuse to nip out and drool over it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendipman Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 (?) (?) What happened to the Original Spare that came with the base van, ask the dealer to get it for you!!! Its yours!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Jones Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 JudgeMental - 2010-03-21 10:45 AM you could always just carry a spare tyre..... Is there much point to that Eddie? I'd have thought that any workshop with the necessary kit to fit a tyre properly would be able to source one for a Ford pretty easily - isn't that one reason we all drive them? (Sorry - re-reading that of course I don't mean EVERYONE drives Fords, just that Eddie, Mel and I all do!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John.N Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 What is the objection to the can of Holt's Tyreweld "get me to the nearest garage" solution? Unless, of course, if you have a blow-out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GypsyTom Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 mendipman - 2010-03-22 10:35 AM(?) (?) What happened to the Original Spare that came with the base van, ask the dealer to get it for you!!! Its yours!! Sorry, but it isn't. If the 'van is advertised as not having a spare wheel then that's the deal. You can't go back three months later and demand a spare wheel! Apart from which, do we really think that a manufacturer such as Hobby will pay for a spare wheel that they have no intention of using? I'm convinced that it will order its base vehicles with exactly the specification that it requires. Mine has a fancy radio with a detachable sat-nav, which I'm sure isn't standard, but Hobby orders its Transits to include this. It's not unreasonable to assume that, if it can order its vehicles with extras, it can also order them without the odd thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Another aspect of wheel size is the pitch centre diameter, known as PCD, which is basically the radius of a circle drawn fron the centre to bisect all the wheel bolf holes and it can vary. Yet another is the offset, which is how far in or out from centre the vertical fixing surface is set. This makes buying seconhand without taking an original with you for direct comparison, or at least having measured the distances and made a cardboard template of the PCD, a bit hit and miss. I too would visit the breakers yards and get a used wheel! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 The tyres are definitely the Continental Vanco ones - I took the info off the identical motorhome at the NEC to be safe. Unfortunately spare wheels are thin on the ground at breakers' yards round these here parts - hubby's already rung around a load to no avail, so I think we'll wait until we get it so we can make sure we get a perfect match to the originals as I too am concerned that we get the correct one as Tracker has mentioned. I might try the dealer though just in case there's a chance of getting one supplied via them but I doubt it as the motorhome should be shortly on it's way to them by now. :-D There's no major rush, just so long as we have one before we go to France in June ... otherwise I'm sure Sod's law would dictate that if we didn't have one we'd get a puncture which would ruin the tyre just as we're on our way somewhere important ... on a Sunday ... and get stuck in the middle of no-where, or even worse, on a motorway! *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 I would wait on getting the tyre. While it is true many of the Transit based campers come on plain vanilla Vancos (made in Czech Rep, in our case), I have seen one Hobby Van on Vanco Campings. Yours is coming from a French converter, and they often favour Michelin. The Ford factory is in Turkey, and most factories these days have several suppliers of components, just to be sure supply hiccups cannot disrupt construction. It's that famous "just in time" delivery regime, that keeps factory stocks to an absolute minimum. You may end up with Hankook instead! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 As Brian says if you want the same tyre as on the van wait. My van & my mates van same van delivered to the dealer on the same day mine has Continental's his has Michelin's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 If your spare exactly matches the other four you can play musical spare wheels and move them around - using the driven wheels makes this happen more quickly - to even out the wear until your spare is down to about 3mm at which point it will truly be worthy of the title spare. Using it and getting value from it will help offset the cost of buying it in the first place - always assumng that you keep the van long enough to do enough miles to wear the tyres down! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Sorry - sticky finger syndrome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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