Spare tire issue - wear marks on sidewall from rubbing against frame

[HydeQc]

Took my spare wheel off because I'm getting KO3s tomorrow. My spare tire has some sort of wear on the sidewall... where it makes contact with the upper "frame". It was really tight in there and the tire seems to have deformed a little bit. I'm guessing this will be covered under warranty?

Sponsored

 

[brumey]

Good catch. We should all check. If nothing else, its a good practice before needing it.

 

[NWRes]

Took my spare wheel off because I'm getting KO3s tomorrow. My spare tire has some sort of wear on the sidewall... where it makes contact with the upper "frame". It was really tight in there and the tire seems to have deformed a little bit. I'm guessing this will be covered under warranty?

I took mine off a week ago just to look it over, test the mechanism and make a trial run. There were marks on my spare too but I think that's all they were, marks. I don't believe there was structural damage to the tire and rim which were also dirty from six months and 10,000 miles of sitting up there collecting road dirt. It took a bit of effort to get it to break loose and lower. No need for it to be tightened down that much and I didn't when I cranked it back into place. Had spared mounted in this manner on a few pickups and our Sequoia and never had one come loose.

 

[Nodak]

could be also from being over inflated.

check your tire mini console in your MID screen to see what the actual psi is in that tire.

it will show as ...

think mine was at 46 psi, which doesnt help. from your pic it looks like it was slowly rubbing it down.

 

[JasonNewYork]

My SR5 donut looks the same. I took it out to replace it with a full sized spare. The frame has two lateral bars supporting the crank mechanism. The tire is pressed against it. I've been looking for a plastic disk to protect it. All I could find are soft vinyl covers. Maybe someone has a solution.

 

[HydeQc]

Had my KO3s installed yesterday and the guys at the tire shop never saw anything like that. They didn't recommand to use the tire (I was not goin to anyway). Went straight to the dealer; they were also speechless. They kept the tire for further investigation and they said I sould be compasated without any problem. (More news on that in the next few days, I will post here as they come).

From what we all saw: 4 "layers" of rubber were kind of dug up... We can count them in my pictures. My spare was at 45psi... Wich is A LOT so maybe that was the problem. I will surely put some rubber (motorcycle tube?) between the tire and the metal bars, and will not crank the mecanism as much as they did like NWRes said.

 

[brumey]

could be also from being over inflated.

check your tire mini console in your MID screen to see what the actual psi is in that tire.

it will show as ...

think mine was at 46 psi, which doesnt help. from your pic it looks like it was slowly rubbing it down.

Question (not trying to hijack the thread.

How to I get that display of tire pressure (especially the spare) on an SR5. I have the app but it only shows the four main tires and not the spare. Maybe that's a higher trim level feature?

 

[Nodak]

Question (not trying to hijack the thread.

How to I get that display of tire pressure (especially the spare) on an SR5. I have the app but it only shows the four main tires and not the spare. Maybe that's a higher trim level feature?

its not in the app, its a sub screen on the MID screen in the vehicle

 

[Nodak]

Question (not trying to hijack the thread.

How to I get that display of tire pressure (especially the spare) on an SR5. I have the app but it only shows the four main tires and not the spare. Maybe that's a higher trim level feature?

here is a better screen shot of the MID screen with the psi display ...

i have 3 screen layouts, #2 has the psi display, #1 has the electric motor display and #3 has the temps gauges for the trans and oil and wheel traction. i change between the 3 screens as needed.

if you look at the 2nd pic, you can see the screen number i am on "1" and you can swap between 3 setups.

 

[127.0.0.1]

here is a better screen shot of the MID screen with the psi display ...

i have 3 screen layouts, #2 has the psi display, #1 has the electric motor display and #3 has the temps gauges for the trans and oil and wheel traction. i change between the 3 screens as needed.

if you look at the 2nd pic, you can see the screen number i am on "1" and you can swap between 3 setups.

How the combo meter can be configured is not the same across all trims.


on SR5 it is 4 tires PSI, and can see one subsection at a time.

 

[Nodak]

How the combo meter can be configured is not the same across all trims.


on SR5 it is 4 tires PSI, and can see one subsection at a time.

is it because the SR5 doesnt have a full size spare?

so i guess if you installed a 5th sensor it would report maybe?

 

[Rusty Rattler]

I would call that on warranty …. As that spare is not safe at any speed!

 

[JasonNewYork]

I'm not sure if it's unsafe. I don't always trust tire shops who are out to sell you tires. Doubtful the dealer would warranty a tire for that reason.

Every 4Runner and Tacoma should have these wear marks since they all use the same tire carrier. the design is poor - use two metal rods. The pickups I've seen in past use a flat piece of steel. I think the only way to avoid it would be to use some sort of plastic tire shield. I looked online and could not find any.

I installed my full sized spare a few weeks ago. I'll drop this weekend and inspect. I did not tighten it to the same level the factory did with the temp spare. I stopped as soon as I felt resistance.

As for the 5th tire senor on a SR5 - I could not confirm this would work so I did not bother. Remember, the SR5 has the smaller instrument cluster display. I bought a take-off wheel and tire separately from eBay and had it mounted and balanced locally. No sensor was installed, just an old fashion rubber valve. I paid $100 for the tire and $200 for the wheel. I'm not going to do a 5 tire rotation. I don't think it's worth it since the tires are so cheap. If I had a better trim them I would recommend it.

 

[JasonNewYork]

Take a look at this thread from the early days... https://www.4runner6g.com/forum/threads/sr5-spare-tire-wheel-2025-4runner-6th-gen-photos.2574/. This is what my spare tire looked like when I removed it. You can see the 4 spots where the bars rubbed the tire.

 

[Nodak]

well sadly on my 2014, i never had the chance to use the full size spare (on that freaky looking yellow wheel) in the 12 yrs i had it.

actually i havent used a spare tire once ever since i started driving in 1984. ive always went to a tire shop to fix or replace a tire. just wasnt worth the hassle long term wise for me.

but then again, i dont usually deal with big city problems with tires and i dont let my tires get below 1/3 tread due to the winters we have in ND where lack of tread causing traction issues.

i mean right now i am looking at replacing the 23 tundra tires with new ones and they are only at 1/2 tread right now (have 17k on them right now and they are rated to 55k miles, SL rating)

Sponsored