It’s much more likely someone with a brick or tire iron will smash your windows looking for iPads or similar than anyone will bother with a spare tire. How much can you get for ONE tire on a steel rim for a very common car? Maybe $10? Seriously, who steals spare tires? People desperate enough that they’ll steal anything are too impatient to crawl under and unscrew whatever’s holding it up there.
If you put your spare in the cargo area, it will be much MORE likely to be stolen IMHO, as it will be a lot more accessible lying loose in there than under the car.
"In the big picture, it's nothing. Pay your insurance, kiss your wife and carry on."
That's my mistake. I kissed Don the insurance agent, and paid my wife.
"...spare in the cargo area, it will be much MORE likely to be stolen"
My thoughts exactly. I'd have to cover it with the sheet.
Not worried.
Just wondering if I can make something like a piece of black pipe work.
I considered spray painting the steel wheel blaze orange to make it repulsive.
If there is ever a flat, it must be immediately repaired at a Discount Tire Store (there are many), so the ugly spare would not be seen long.
So you’ve heard some reports saying thieves are stealing spare tires. I wouldn’t give this another thought.
If you have theft insurance, you’re covered. If you don’t have theft insurance, how much money are we talking about to replace your spare? It can’t be enough to warrant this much consideration.
RG, ask yourself if your suspicions pass the “sniff test”: hospitals have pharms, potentially PO’d patients…so they always have security and cameras. Do you REALLY think anyone’s gonna brave this gauntlet for a rusty spare?
Notwithstanding news hype, I’ll bet that 99% of the time this happens, it’s a case of somebody riding on the donut, seeing a like-model vehicle with a full-size spare sitting there…and going for it. Note that it is ENTIRELY possible that the paper pimped this story a bit–intentionally or not–to fill space on a “slow news day.” It’s certainly happened before…
Most every counter-measure suggested would make using the spare difficult, messy, or impossible…at which point, why bother even having one? My suggestion is: no countermeasures, park under cameras, and if you lose one spare per decade…treat it as a business expense. (Like I treat the inevitable tire puncture from my scrapyard forays.)
"Do you REALLY think anyone's gonna brave this gauntlet for a rusty spare?"
My RN girlfriend said cars there get broken into regularly. They got into her car but she had nothing to steal.
Agreed, I would not bother with an Expedition's spare steel wheel.
If your in a parking garage could you just back in? It be alot harder to steal it if you were backed up against the wall. Plus if they are that determined to steal a tire, why not just take one of the 4 main tires.
"If you're in a parking garage could you just back in?"
Good idea!
But the vehicle is parked at the street curb next to the ambulance entrance so that I am not in anyone's way.
Walk out the ED straight to the vehicle and often depart at 0:dark-thirty. Perhaps too late for the lowlifes.
At one Dodge dealer that I worked at they installed a cheap bicycle security cable and an all weather pad lock on each new trucks spare tire. The keys were often misplaced and the locks were easy to cut off but they solved the problem. Just route the cable through the center of the wheel, over the cross member and around the tire back to the center of the wheel.
At a different dealer that I worked at the spare tires were taken from every Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, I believe there were about six. The replacement cost was about $500 each.
I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but around here over the last several years there has been tremendous growth in the used tire business. With the economic downturn several years ago, many people started buying used tires to get by for a while, since a set of tires can cost a few bucks.
As for what the OP is worried about, the Expedition spare tire can be lowered with a crank supplied with the jack and be out of the car and in the back of someone’s truck in less than a minute. No other tools needed. The same with many other SUVs. Now a set of name brand replacement tires for an Expedition will run, say, $600-$700. A fly-by-night used tire shop can “acquire” 4 matching new (spare) tires and sell them for $400. Not a bad profit. And it happens everywhere. Last time my wife and I went to the movies we saw an Escalade driving out of the lot leaving a trail of sparks. The empty spare tire hanger was dragging on the ground.
If you’re parked next to the ambulance entrance, at what’s got to be a high traffic area, and no doubt with cameras too, and someone is willing to crawl under and spend 30 minutes fighting to dislodge your spare tire in plain view, then IMHO it’s time to consider working in an area where they won’t steal the lines off the road.
"Escalade driving out of the lot leaving a trail of sparks. The empty spare tire hanger was dragging on the ground."
One must open the liftgate to gain access to the crank to manually lower the spare.
Can the criminal remove the bolt holding the wheel retainer to the cable?
(Saturday is day to lower the spare and check its pressure, so I'll look at how it is vulnerable.)
If your spare tire winch access is in the cargo area you have little to worry about. A thief will target pick up trucks and often at a location a matching set can be found.
"A gun and an alarm would probably do the trick but Colorado doesn't allow guns anymore."
You can carry a gun in the vehicle!
The vehicle is considered an extension of ones house.
But lowlifes steal when no one is around.
(I was under the Jeep changing oil when a hospital called for blood platelets transported emergent for a patient bleeding out in trauma surgery.
When I returned, my metric Crescent wrench behind the oil-catching basin was gone.
You know how hard it is to find a metric Crescent wrench?)
Colorado still has a “Make My Day” law which allows one to shoot an intruder inside their home.
But I believe in always firing warning shots
I don’t worry sop much about them stealing my Expedition spare
BUT
I worry about them SLASHING it when they find it too hard to simply swipe.
( I can just immagine needing the spare one day next year and finding it flattened )
And THIS has been exactly the case in the past on other vehicles.
if I made it too hard to get to the desired items…
If I left the nothing to take…
the resulting ticked off VANDALISM far outweighs the price of anything potentially stolen.
So that listening to Car Talk not a total waste of time, I inspect the emergencyehicles while Tom and Ray are on.
I lowered the spare and checked pressure.
One would need a battery-operated cutting wheel to cut through the holder which is crimped onto the lowering cable. Above the flat-topped crimp fastener is a spring. Too bad the spring does not extend over the crimp fastener providing more protection to the fastener and cable.
I’d be more worried about vandalism than theft. Try a google search for such an item. Remember that nothing will stop a determined thief or vandal…I used to work in a bad part of Atlanta. It’s amazing the way the criminal mind works.
Robert Gift, you have been on here before with “nut case” ideas or questions, I have been driving 65 years and have NEVER had a spare tire stolen. You have just as good a chance of winning the lottery.