The spare tire on my 203 Grand Caravan cannot be lowered. It hangs up approx. 3 inches from the rear deck, even though the cable will descend further. Any idea how to make it come down?
try to spray some penetrating oil on the mechanism, chain or cable that holds the tire up. Move the crank both ways, up and down back and forth to loosen it. These mechanisms can get a lot of water on them and rust, or dirt and small rocks can cause them to bind.
You’ll have to explain this in more detail. If the cable keeps coming down, what exactly is holding the tire up? On my car, the tire hangs on the cable end, so if the cable comes down, the tire will too.
Some under the vehicle spare tire pockets have a round rubber isolator attached to the bottom of the panel so the spare tire doesn’t vibrate against the panel. If the spare tire has been mounted under the vehicle for a long period of time, the spare tire can become bonded to this rubber isolator. Then when you try to lower the spare, this isolator holds onto the spare tire where it will only lower a couple of inches and then stops.
Try yanking down on the spare. Either rubber isolator will stay on the panel or be torn off and come down with the spare tire.
Tester
My 2002 Town and Country did the same thing. I had to unbolt the whole spare tire mechanism from underneath.There is a hard plastic or rubber piece that the cable goes through that had jammed itself into the squarish metal tube that the cable runs through stopping the Wheel from coming down. My solution was to use prybars to get the rubber part out of the metal tube and grind the mushroom shaped head of the rubber part small enough to easily slip in and out of the metal tube.
Sorry for the late reply. The spare tire descends approx. 4 inches, then dangles without dropping further. I can lower the cable further as much as I want and it will hang below the tire which REMAINS approx. 4 in. from the pan. I used a short 2 x 4 to pry the tire to come down but no luck. I cannot figure out what keeps the tire up in the dangling position. My logic tells me it shoult either drop down completely or remain suspended tight against the pan. But the partial drop makes no sense to me.