I have never had to change a Promaster tire yet. My 2021 came without the spare or the carrier. The dealer said someone must have borrowed it, but I think it was missed in production. I assume there is still the spot under the chassis if you wanted to buy one & a carrier?

 

Fascinating.

While I feel good about having a spare tire the fact that it is underbody leaves it vulnerable. I once had a flat tire on a minivan and the tire was located underbody. It would not drop down. Mechanism failure. So I had to be towed even though I know how to change a flat. This was my lemon T&C fancy minivan that I happily lost in the divorce.

Is the van in the video a 2023? I couldn't tell the difference. I thought the 2023 was going to look different in some way.

 

Is the van in the video a 2023?

They show the 2023 interior and 2022 exterior in the video.

Forgot to mention our Nexen tires come with 36 month road side assistance.

 

Got a flat tire @ 2K miles on the van, but it was a slow leak from a screw and it didn't go flat until the next morning in my driveway. This mobility kit would have done the same job and would have made it much easier.

 

We had to use our spare tire during a trip, we were just outside of a small town. I wouldn't travel without one, but if all you do is local driving, no spare is fine. I want to drive through dempster highway, I would carry two spare since its a remote non paved road.

 

Surprise, surprise, I found the exact same Mopar inflator in my garage. I had saved it from my old Cherokee from 3 years ago. It came without a spare. I bought a spare kit for it, so I kept this in my stash of garage junk. I never knew it had fix-a flat built in until seeing that video.

 

Be sure to check the expiration date

 

Ditto, I haven't had a flat in years. Still, given that we frequent remote areas, I wouldn't be without a spare. If they are no longer standard, that's another reminder that PMs are marketed with expediting in mind rather than overlanding.

I don't like underhung spares either. But for me, it's the lesser evil of all other mounting locations. We've heard it here before, the tire winch needs occasional exercise to help keep it from seizing up.

Now is also a good time to read the fine print on your roadside assistance policy. What kind of roads, locations, and distances does it cover? Coach-net has the broadest coverage I've seen so far; it's also the most expensive.

 

Not to argue, just sharing my story
Once driving up James Bay rd (paved) at night, got full speed into an unmarked trench left by road workers. Damaged all 4 rims and tires. Drove about 60 km, stopping every 10 minutes to pump two most damaged tires. Got to the town, there was a garage. Ordering rims and tires would take 1-2 weeks. Borrowed a sledge hammer and straightened the rim the best I could. Later drove home (two days) safely*. And drove these wheels for a week more before I got replacement. Pumping up daily.
I had a spare wheel, but it wasn't much help, since I needed 4
It is not the dempster highway, but the closest thing on east we get in terms of remoteness.

And for all punctures, always used a repair kit. Worked great every time.

General PDP Template

www.canadiantire.ca

 

Hi.

From a couple years ago...

Maybe a good compromise for the PM is to be able to mount the spare to the back door and only take it on trips that will include back/rough roads?

This way you don't carry it most of the time, and when you do need it, its a lot easier to get to and you don't have to worry about the tire winch not working.

We actually had a case on a back road in Iceland in a rental RAV4 that took out two tires on the same rock! Luckily we were with another RAV4 rental and both had spare tires.

Gary

 

 

We sent our dealer an order based on 2022 and when 2023 opened he called us to say what was different, and I was shocked about the spare tire. But then I think about what you said and I can only recall one situation of a flat, and one that was easy enough to fit with a plug once I got it back. I still got the spare though for piece of mind.

 

If* spare tire refuses to drop on demand - try using scissors jack to gently lift the claw foot that engages spares rim at center hub - sometimes that will unlock the winch...

AND the same except when installing to lock it in fully lifted position IF there is an oversized (245) tire on the spare.

Oh, and always check after 25/50/200 miles that its staying locked up - quite embarassing to have it hanging low while it is looking for a solid object to connect with... D'oh!

 

In 40 years of driving I have had three blow outs - all were with rentals and 2 were RVs. Then there was one time in SD on back roads near the Badlands with a rental Promaster City when we got a flat that could have been fixed with slime and a pump kit - only the rental owner took kit out the van to avoid it getting stolen! I would easily drive a small car around town with just a run flat kit but would never drive a camper out of town without a full sized spare.

 

I had a tire completely low out in the middle of no where New Mexico. These kits wouldn’t help there. I hope that the cavity for the spare is still there as I'll just buy my own and hopefully still mount it in the same location.

 

My 2023 was ordered without knowing it came with no spare tire. I just found this from RAM.

I feel better now. In 50 years of driving, I’ve never had a flat bad enough where this solution would not work. My wife had a blown tire once, in her 50 years of driving that required a tow. Totally destroyed tire and no spare included.

Hey, one less TPMS sensor to fail and nag us!

My 2018 RV is built on a 2017 Ram Promaster. It had no spare tire (it would have been underneath) because other things were installed under the chassis (lithium batteries, propane tank, etc.). I had my tech guy install a swing mounted spare on the left rear door.

 

First think I did when I got my van was buy a spare tire and wheel. It hooks to the door ladder I have and I can remove it if I don't want to travel with it. Even if you could "fix" a flat with injected goop you'd probably need to buy another tire in the end as the goop would certainly screw up the balance.

 

We lost three tires before we upgraded to more chunky ones. Two were repairable, one was not. I wouldn't want to rely on a repair kit in some of the places we go. One time it was in Burbank and that was fine, the other two times were on forest roads and not close to anything.

 

I had a flat in the van with less than 1,500 miles. On a long bridge in cold rain. Luckily the bridge had a road service truck to help. I had taken out the jack and tools...because I had just lowered the seats.

 

I checked with my dealer and my build config has the spare time option. I didn't specifically ask for it, but maybe it was included on one of my packages. It's also possible the dealer already knew and added the option. The order option on my order says:

Full Size Spare (TBB)

We will see what shows up next year when my van gets here.

 

When I ordered my '23, the order kept coming through with the Full Size Spare option/adder. I kept telling the salesman to remove it as previous years included the full size spare and RAM hadn't (and still hasn't to my knowledge) released an order guide/brochure detailing the change.

 

Well now that you bought the Van,,, Do ya want the wheels also? 😜

 

Huh?