Hi everybody.
I thought you might like to have a look at an experiment I did today, as I've been trying to think of a way to squeeze a larger tyre into my spare wheel well without potentially having to smash & bash or put it on the roof.
I have a 2016 SJ and my stock tyre is 225/60/17. I have bought some 16 inch rims with a view to going either 215/70/16 or possibly 225/70/16 but the problem as others have found is that there is very little excess room in the spare wheel well. Anyway, since the car is still quite new I don't want to bash the metal or cut anything or make a major modification like a rear bar to take a spare. So, the main options I have been thinking of are either having a deflated tyre as a spare or putting the spare on the roof. I don't mind the deflated tyre as I would have the compressor with me regardless and I don't mind the wheel on the roof except that it takes up a lot of room and uses up a lot of the allowable weight.
Anyway, deflating my stock tyre didn't make much difference if any to the size but it was sufficiently soft that I could push the rubber. Since my tyre already fit I couldn't really tell how easy it would be to push the rubber to fit something larger although I did think that if something was just a bit bigger it probably would fit (like 215/70/16). I'm not too sure about say 225/70/16 and I am not aware of anyone squeezing this in. This size is what got me wondering about how to fit it.
So... since I've used a belt to tighten and hold my rolled up tent to fit in the tent bag better I thought a similar thing could be done with a deflated tyre, but with some ratchet straps! I've included 3 photos. One photo shows some tic tacs sitting on top, and the other photo shows that after using the straps the tic tacs were able to pass through the space created. While the ratchet mechanism is a little bulky in my vehicle at least there is plenty of room at the top. It is just at the sides that there is very little room. I didn't go as tight as I possibly could but it must have been close.
I am not sure if being compressed like this has could have a negative effect on the side walls but I imagine that if it was only for a relatively short period of time there shouldn't be too many downsides if any. I plan to use my 16 inch wheels only when going up the beach or on some other off-road trip.
So, hopefully others might be able to make use of this technique as well! Hopefully I will be able to use it to fit whatever tyre I end up getting and will make a post in the coming weeks with a picture or two of the end result. I figure that with a 70 profile rather than my current 60 profile the sidewalls should compress better again so here's hoping!
Attachments: |

Extra space.JPG [ 625.06 KiB | Viewed 155 times ]
|

In wheel well.JPG [ 359.56 KiB | Viewed 150 times ]
|

Before straps.JPG [ 526.51 KiB | Viewed 164 times ]
|
|