Spare Wheels Are So Inconveniently Stored In Modern Cars!by John Neville Cohen
(479 words) Having been a keen British classic car enthusiast for many
years (particularly fond of the Jensen classic cars of the early
sixties) I only recently purchased a very advanced luxurious
modern car. My new car is packed with what amounts to amazing
technology. But even with such expensive modern cars I have
found one poor design aspect. I am referring to the housing of the spare tyre and wheel.
In the Jensen CV8 and before that, the Jensen 541S (as was the
case with many cars of the early sixties) the spare wheel and
tyre were stored under the boot and could be lowered from a
point just inside the boot. The most obvious advantage of this was, that even if the
car was full of people and luggage, in the event of having to
replace a wheel, one did not have to take the entire luggage out
to get at the spare.
If a wheel needed to be changed these days, more often than not,
if it is going to happen, it will be in pouring rain! Then the
entire luggage would have to be out in the rain, for all the
time, it takes to change the wheel and to get the dirty, wet,
damaged one back in the boot! Worst still, many of the new spare tyres now are of a
special collapsed type (taking up less space) and the normal
tyre will not fit in the space provided. So now the entire
luggage and the dirty, wet, tyre will not be possible to fit
back in to the boot! I expect the car manufacturers would claim, if challenged,
that such a situation is unlikely to happen as it is true that
there seem to be less punctures these days than before. However,
I travel a lot in Spain and have found that there is a real risk
of having a tyre deliberately punctured (with a knife) as a
method employed by thieves intending to steal from you. Once
your tyre has been attacked (often at traffic lights) they then
follow you and point out your problem, offering to help, whilst
another is busy robbing you. This has happened to me twice now,
luckily without them succeeding in stealing anything. But on the
one occasion my car was really packed full and I realised just
how impossible it was to get at my spare.
With my Jensen 541S it was an easy matter to jack the car up
whilst keeping dry inside the car. Just in front of the two
front seats the carpet was simply pulled away and a sealed cover
opened. The Jack was then dropped down this hole and connected
to the jacking up fitting, so that as one turned the handle the
car could be lifted up. I do not understand why these aspects are no longer
incorporated in our modern designs.
For more details about the Jensen 541S & CV8 classic
cars please use the following link: - https://www.jncohen.net/Jensen/index.htm The John Neville Cohen owned a collection of Jensen 541S classic cars, winning a number awards with his cars, he has been an enthusiastic member of The Jensen Owners Club for many years. To view the photographs that relate to this article please use the following link: - https://www.jncohen.net/Jensen/article.htm He has also been a very keen collector for many years in helping to create �The Cohen Collection�. He also provides a 'how to' article on photographic special effects please see https://www.jncohen.net
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Spare Wheels, Inconveniently, Stored, Modern Cars! John Neville Cohen, Spare Tyre, Cars
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