# Flat



## M41841 (7 mo ago)

Interested in peoples thoughts on the lack of spare tire and what options are available?
I’ve only owned my model 3 a week and spent all yesterday trying to get it fixed. Hit something that blew out right rear, got safely to hard shoukder then realized I just bought a car that has no spare! Called Tesla assistance and was told they can tow to service center or somewhere else as long as 50 miles or less. I’m new to the area and after a few quick calls it was clear there are no tire repair services around here that stock these tires and most close early Sat and shut Sundays, so only option was to wait 30 mins for tow truck to take car 1 hour to the Newall SC.I was lucky as I was told Tesla service does NOT have to take driver, just car, but this driver had room to take me too, or I’d still be at roadside now! I asked if they would be open and Tesla assured me they would and had booked my appt, I arrived after 5 and all tech staff had gone and they had no record of appt. Normally they would keep car till open Monday and I’d have to find my own way home and back again, but they managed to find someone to change tire. If it was any other model they would have had NO tire in stock and only 1 set of Model 3,’ so any other drivers were out of luck. Paid my $500 and drove another hour back home. The rim is also damaged, but couldn’t afford the $750 it would cost to fix that too. I already had an appt in 2 weeks there to fix damaged paint work found when picking up the car, so when i go back to get that sorted I will see if pressure is holding or if new rim required.
In Europe my friend says Tesla provide an inflater with injection sealant that you can repair tire just to get home/repair shop. Not sure it would have helped here, but I was hoping I could find something similar here for piece of mind just as backup. Anyone heard of something similar here that would work for these low profile tires? Tesla staff said they used to provide something similar here but had issues with it so stopped providing them. 
Or maybe an insurance policy to cover the exorbitant costs for damages like this? My Mini Cooper had a policy that covered all tire costs that you could add on top of the car warranty and it worked well when required.

Sorry for the long post, but I really don’t want to have to go through all that again, so would like to find some other options if available. Tesla need to do a much better job on the after sales support, something I hope they know is severely lacking and they need to drastically improve on to keep up with the competition.


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## Power Surge (Jan 6, 2022)

Do a search for spare here on the site. There is a long thread about it with ideas, including how I did my own setup.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Here's the thread:








Model 3 mini Spare tire trunk rack


I’ve had my Tesla Model 3 since August, 2018. I travel extensively for my work and have had 2 tire blowouts. One occurred in the country, at night, where I had no cell phone reception. After the second flat my wife refused to drive the car due to lack of a spare tire, so I designed and...




www.teslaownersonline.com


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

I haven't had a car with a spare for over 6 years now. I believe that of the two cars that we have, there has only been one flat.

Lots more cars are coming without spares; flats are a relatively uncommon occurrence these days. 

And to top it off, so few drivers can actually change a tire now.

A spare adds weight to the car and thus decreases range. When added to the space required to store it and the jack, along with the cost and the rarity of flats, many manufacturers are removing spares.

I definitely remember a time or two when a tire store wouldn't rotate my spare onto the car, because it was just too old.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

I agree it is hard to change a tire yourself, mainly because the tire when flat is hard to get a jack under and the lug nuts are overtorqued by air impact wrenches, Even with my weight advantage makes them difficult to break.

I keep a spare wheel on the wall in my garage. I purchased this when I first got my car, because you could not easily get Tesla tires and I did not want to wait a couple weeks for a tire. This is not very helpful on trips. I do keep a battery powered compressor, tire plug kit, Cresent Wrench, Cigarette Lighter and Bottle Opener in the car for emergencies.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

Hit something on 285 today that took out one of my new tires. I called Tesla roadside assistance, They quoted me $370 plus Tax for the new tire, but then they want to tell it to a service center about 40 miles from my house, and then they couldn’t get to the tire until tomorrow because it’s Sunday. I am now waiting up to 90 minutes for a tow truck to come and tell me to my house for $180 where I have a spare wheels and tires. I am very thankful I have it today.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

Back online. If I didn’t have the spare it will be at least tomorrow, with a whole lot of Ubering, before I would be back on line


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

I do think the tesla the AI and HMI is extremely weak and needs to be more focused on the user experience instead of gathering data for dojo. When I hit something on the road I was doing about 80 miles an hour, I just got the idiot light tire pressure alert. It is very frustrating that they have not improve the tire pressure monitoring system on a Tesla. First they move the display so I have no idea where to see the tire pressure anymore, especially at 80 miles an hour on 285 in Atlanta. Luckily I had my auxiliary display which showed me the pressure in front of me. But the biggest frustration is Tesla can’t even tell you which tire is showing low? How can this be? The alert should be very big tell you exactly what tire has gone flat, replace your audio screen with nothing but big easy to read tire pressure monitoring, showing the rate. This would’ve been a lot easier for me to determine whether I could make it to the exit or not. either way it’s a 2012 system in 2022. Luckily I was dressed appropriately for the day. Even after I install the new tire and reset it on the display so it started to display the new tire, I still got the tire pressure warning until the next trip. For 50 miles It could not determine that the tire pressure was OK and remove the alarm on its own.

Also, my car alarm went off while being towed, yesterday. This is happened about six or seven times in the last month. No clear way to turn it off from the app, I fumble around and turn off Sentry mode, but it’s not clear that’s how you do it, Because it doesn’t immediately turn off. I don’t know if it’s timing out or I turned it off. Another good example of how bad the interface and app is. Also, it’s an example of how “over the air updates“ are a curse because there’s no use complaining to Tesla as they say it’s only happening to me and it will be taken care of in the next update most likely.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)




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