Smart Car Spare Tire Location? - Page 2

yellow-smart · 10-05-2008, 10:00 AM

Stupid people don't think these kinds of things out. Ever seen this story:

Terri Says:
December 14th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Oh… not another ATM theft. I read about one that didn’t work out. A chain was put around the ATM and connected to the bumper of the truck. Apparently the bumper gave way before the ATM did, so the theif wannabes got scared and drove away, leaving behind their bumper, chain, and oops… their license plate.

Thieves are stupid. They would steal the tire and probably never realize it only had 3 bolt holes until much later.

Yellow-Smart

BigWarpGuy · 10-05-2008, 02:44 PM

Perhaps a car tire cover that matches the Fortwo would make the spare not stand out so much? Here is a Froogle results 'custom tire cover'.

Here is one from SmarteParts.

They have a listing for a port of potty called a SmartePooper. I am curious what it would look like(?).

sunnyokanagan · 10-05-2008, 04:11 PM

Will a front tire fit behind your seat?

Here's one in my 450:

Stu415 · 10-05-2008, 04:35 PM

The next thing I've done to my spare tire carrier is to insert a solid bar of steel inside the 1" square tube to beef it up. The center needs to be stiffer so you can torque down on the hold down lugs and squeeze the tire onto the cross tube. Without the renforcement the tube will flex towards the center of the rim from the torque.

The holes that allow bolts to run towards the car have been beefed up with some crush sleaves. Just cut a small length of pipe to fit inside the square tube.

I also decided to weld the lug bolts in place so you don't need two wrenches to remove the spare now. I only tacked them on the bottom so you will only see the welds if you crawl under the car.

Next step will be to weld some 1.5" ball bearings on the ends of the tube as a finishing touch.

Stu415 · 10-05-2008, 04:36 PM

Oh, I have to paint it again too!

buellwinkle · 10-14-2008, 01:08 PM

Seems like a lot of work for a simple problem. Here's my spare tire, sits behind the drivers seat, uses a VW jack from a salvage yard and a Mr. Lugnut wrench with at 15mm socket from Walmart and a bag made by the njbaglady.com.