I had a tire destroyed on September 20th (Wednesday, it is now September 28th), my car is still sitting in my garage with a useless spare on it. Essentially not drivable, Unless I want to take a chance on ruining something. I’ve already put more than 50 miles on it since putting the spare on. I have a tire supposedly coming from the local Subaru dealer, ordered on Friday September 22nd. It took that long for me to order because I was weighing my options. I found that no one around here shaves tires and I’m not willing to buy 4 new tires for just one bad one. My tires only have 16,000 miles on them, lots of miles left. Subaru was the cheapest option I could find for a tire and the only one I could find to shave a tire. I looked at tire rack, they were much higher. I could be some places where it could be 20 miles just to get to pavement, 100 miles to a Subaru dealer and another 1,000 miles home. What would I do with a donut spare then? I don’t live in a remote area and yet no one in my area shaves tires, even if they do, I’d have to order it and wait or, buy 4 tires to get home.
I think it a shame Subaru puts this crappy little tire in the car for a spare and says you can’t drive very far and you have to put it on the back only. At least this was a rear tire. I originally found out about this after I purchased the car. I was not looking for a car at the time, my truck was rear ended and totaled. I had to have something to drive sooner rather than later. Of course, this was the time when cars were in short supply (February of 2022). I paid a premium price for it. When I found out about the tire thing, I wasn’t happy. If I would have known ahead of time, it would have definitely affected my decision (oh well for me). I didn’t have a lot of time to research. A friend of mine has a Subaru and really likes it, he said it saved him in a crash so he got another one to replace it. I wanted something with decent mileage and comfort that could still do some off highway stuff, camping in remote areas and such. I thought about a 4Runner. Bad gas mileage and bad highway performance. I decided on the Subaru.
Sorry about the long post, but I needed to rant a little. I’m not happy the car I paid a premium for is sitting in my garage with a useless spare on it for a week now. I have things to do, people to see and places to go!
Anyway, to get to the questions I have, I want to know what my next step is. I ordered a 5th rim on eBay. I will order another tire from the local dealer. The question: What is my best option from there? I’m going to do the 5 tire rotation. I plan on getting a TPMS sensor. Which sensor should I buy? Is the OEM sensor the best option or a third party sensor? I want to have the TPMS be functional, even if I have to get a programmer myself and do it. So the question is, which sensor and programmer should I get? Do I even need a programmer? As far as I’ve figured out, if I get the autel 408 and one of their TPMS sensors, that would do the trick. I can use their sensor in the 5th tire and clone it to the tire I take off to put the 5th tire on. After I take it off,mi do nothing. Then, the next time I use the 5th tire, I repeat. If this is wrong, let me know.
I have searched and read many post here and on the internet. I have not been able to come up with a definitive answer.
Thanks in advance, Jack
