Can You Spare a Tire?

By JOEL D. JOSEPH

I recently rented a Kia Forte from Avis. I parked the Kia at a store in Los Angeles and after I finished shopping, I noticed that I had a flat tire. I immediately called Triple A. While waiting for the emergency roadside service truck, I opened the trunk to get the spare tire ready for AAA to install.

To my amazement, I was shocked to discover that the space for a spare tire in the trunk was empty. The service truck driver said that many new cars come without spare tires. Kia provided a repair kit, but the tire had a gash, not a puncture. The AAA truck drove off and the technician said he could not do anything, that I needed to buy a tire or call Avis.

After a 30-minute hold on the phone call to Avis, I needed to take action to get to an appointment across town. Luckily, I found  a replacement tire nearby. I was fortunate that I did not get a flat tire in the desert on a highway in the middle of nowhere. You could be stranded on a cold highway in Alaska or North Dakota far from a service station and freeze to death from extreme cold temperatures.

When I returned home, I dealt with Avis’s legal department. I stated that under the Uniform Commercial Code, which is the law of the land in all 50 states, that every consumer product must include an implied warranty of fitness for intended use. And I argued that for a rental car to be fit for its intended use, that it must have a spare tire. Tires go flat. That is why most cars have spare tires.

Avis decided that I had a good point and in good faith compensated me for my lost time and aggravation.

But Avis is not the real problem. Many car manufacturers now do not include a spare tire, not even those little donut tires that used to be provided for spares to drive 50 or so miles to a gas station.

The unbelievable part of this story is that many luxury cars, some costing north of $100,000, don’t come with a spare tire. Remarkably, most Mercedes Benz vehicles do not come with a spare. Same with Porsche, Tesla, BMW and Jaguar. In fact, about 30% of all new cars do not have a spare tire.

AAA provided a list of new vehicles that don’t offer a spare at all. Here they are in alphabetical order:

Acura NSX

Audi R8 and Audi TT

BMW 2, 3, 4 and 6 Series, BMW i3, BMW i8, BMW X3, BMW X4

Cadillac ATS, Cadillac CTS

Chevrolet Bolt EV, Chevrolet Camaro, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet SS, Chevrolet Volt

Dodge Viper

Fiat 500, Fiat 500L, Fiat 500X

Ford C-Max

Hyundai Accent, Hyundai Ioniq

Infiniti QX30

Jaguar F-Type

Jeep Cherokee, Jeep Compass, Jeep Renegade

Kia Forte, Kia Niro, Kia Rio, Kia Soul

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Mercedes-Benz B-Class, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Mercedes-Benz GLA-Class, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Mercedes-Benz SL-Class

Mini Cooper Countryman

Mitsubishi i-MiEV

Nissan GT-R, Nissan Leaf

Porsche 718 Cayman, Porsche 911 Carrera, Porsche Panamera

Smart ForTwo

Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X

The automobile manufactures claim that they go without putting in spare tires to save a few pounds, and therefore save fuel. This is hogwash. A 5,000-pound Mercedes saves less that 50 pounds by deleting a spare tire. Fifty pounds would represent a savings of one tenth of 1% of the vehicle’s weight, a minuscule savings in fuel consumption.

While I was pleased that Avis provided me with compensation, I thought that the entire premise of cars without spare tires presents an unnecessary safety risk. I filed a complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) asking the federal agency to require that all new cars come with a fully-functional spare tire. That complaint is still pending at the agency.

Congress should pass legislation to require that spare tires are provided in all new vehicles. Congress passed laws requiring seat belts, airbags, pollution control devices and other safety features on all cars and trucks. The law could also apply to car rental companies requiring them to provide spare tires in all rental cars in their fleet.

Joel Joseph is an attorney and chairman of the Made in the USA Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting American-made products. Email joeldjoseph@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2022

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