Oh I know the well is deep enough, others elsewhere say it is, here are some pics I just took, sorry this is with My smart phone.

I put the tape measure across the opening. It'll be tight, 23.7" is the most that should fit there, since 24" is what the tape says.

Starting at 4".

Ending at 28".

Oh and I took this out so that a full size tire will fit, this is so the compact tire will support the "wooden" tire cover that is under the carpet, it was glued down.

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

On Monday I'll be getting the gas furnace for My home repaired, as the appointment is set. So I'll have gas heat for the winter.

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

On Vic's car problems, when I was younger and had oldish cars, if I had a problem and needed replacement parts the first place I would go would be the car recycling places.
And having done a very quick search I came across Bells Auto Parts & Wrecking, 8777 San Fernando Rd, Sun Valley, CA 91352 on the first page not that far away.

On a very old car you often find that genuine spare parts are not made any more, and that pattern parts are hard to come by. So yes, using a car breakers is sometimes the only way to keep a car on the road. But you don't ever buy s/h tyres. Even though upon inspection they might look OK you don't know how many times they have been kerbed, weakening the side wall.

Many years ago in the 60's I ran a Triumph Herald t that took 560 x 13 tyres. You could fit 590 x 13 tyres on the rims and get a heck of a load more mileage. But only on the rear, the front would make the steering too stiff. Probably an MOT failure today to mix tyre sizes. like that.

(That was of course with the original cross plys not modern radials)

In my case I had just bought an old 2nd hand car so didn't even know tyre history of tyres on the car, but it had no spare and one wheel had a few dents in the rim. So decided to look for recycled ones, at the 3rd or 4th scrapyard, we found a similar car that had only been brought in a few days before after an accident. It had been rolled and I got all 5 wheels and tyres, which looked in better shape and had more tread than my originals. I also took the seats, they were a matched set the originals weren't, and the boot (trunk) lid.

On Vic's car problems, when I was younger and had oldish cars, if I had a problem and needed replacement parts the first place I would go would be the car recycling places.
And having done a very quick search I came across Bells Auto Parts & Wrecking, 8777 San Fernando Rd, Sun Valley, CA 91352 on the first page not that far away.

On a very old car you often find that genuine spare parts are not made any more, and that pattern parts are hard to come by. So yes, using a car breakers is sometimes the only way to keep a car on the road. But you don't ever buy s/h tyres. Even though upon inspection they might look OK you don't know how many times they have been kerbed, weakening the side wall.

Many years ago in the 60's I ran a Triumph Herald t that took 560 x 13 tyres. You could fit 590 x 13 tyres on the rims and get a heck of a load more mileage. But only on the rear, the front would make the steering too stiff. Probably an MOT failure today to mix tyre sizes. like that.

(That was of course with the original cross plys not modern radials)

In my case I had just bought an old 2nd hand car so didn't even know tyre history of tyres on the car, but it had no spare and one wheel had a few dents in the rim. So decided to look for recycled ones, at the 3rd or 4th scrapyard, we found a similar car that had only been brought in a few days before after an accident. It had been rolled and I got all 5 wheels and tyres, which looked in better shape and had more tread than my originals. I also took the seats, they were a matched set the originals weren't, and the boot (trunk) lid.

Sounds like you scored a win.

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

You'd be surprised how many people are not aware of those date codes, Rob. It is one of the things I've checked for years, as a seemingly good deal on a car, can become a nightmare, if the thing is shod with ten-year-old tyres. With tyres that old, they might not even last ten miles, never mind the cost of replacing them - generally, work on six years or seven years at most. They will, literally, fall apart - or blow out at the worst possible moment. Oh yes, rolling diameter of wheels/tyres can catch people out. Ideally, the spare wheel/tyre should be the same size or extremely close to the others. A big difference, may manifest itself, as a failure in the ABS system, as the wheel sensor detects the difference in rotational speed - at what point the system will register the ABS 'fault', will depend on the system parameters. I actually bought a car with an ABS 'fault' after the dealer offered to reduce the price by £600 (quite a bit, back in about '97!) because of it......two hours later, the car was 100% for the cost of about £40. Not often you get to catch out a dealer! Another thing to be careful of, is if the tyre is 'uni-directional' i.e., at speed, it is designed to rotate in one direction only - you could only use that spare, on two wheels, or one side. Make sure your spare is omni-directional - if it isn't, pray that it won't be the two wheels you can't change, that get the puncture. At best; it'll be a straight swap. Not too bad; finding you have onmi-directionals on two other wheels, so a bit of tyre 'shuffling' involved. Worst case; all tyres on your car are uni-directional and the spare 'rotates the wrong way' to the one punctured!

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Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!

Remember too, if you have full time 4 wheel drive, always replace all 4 tires. I had a friend who replaced 2. He burned up the transfer case. It ended up costing $1,400 to repair. And he still had to replace all 4 tires.

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The reason I choose a 14 inch tire for the spare, instead of the 15 inch, is as follows:

185/65x14 22.7 inch outside diameter
185/60x15 23.7 inch outside diameter

I don't know if the trunk can handle a 15" tire, a 14" tire yes, I'll have to take a tape measure out and do some measuring, the advice on FEOA is for a 14" tire, since the 15" is an optional size, standard is 14" in the case of a Ford Escort zx2.

That's 1 inch difference - don't even think about using the 185/65x14 as a spare.

Actually I've just run the sizes through a tyre manufacturer's comparison calculator and come up with :
185/65x14 = 23.5
185/65x15 = 23.7
Did you remember that its 185/65x14 and not 185/60x14?

The 0.2 inch difference is just about acceptable, but, and a very big but, the sidewall flex on the 185/65x14 will be so much more than the 185/60x15 as to throw the whole car way out of balance as to make it dangerous even at quite low speeds, never mind freeway speeds. (skinnies get away with this by having much stiffer sidewalls, and clever construction, when compared to "normal" tyres)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I don't think that applies to Vic's low power front wheel drive car.
(btw at least one of the high performance awd cars has, by design, different sizes front and rear - makes carrying a spare a grade one PIA)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

deflation in a compact spare will happen above 50mph.

That is not the only issue with skimpies - at elevated speeds the tread wears so much faster, due to the choice of rubber compounds in the tread required to give them similar grip to the wider tyres. They don't deflate at high speeds, they loose their grip, tread and sidewalls start to flex badly and generally become "unsafe". On the one occasion I have used a skimpie in anger I had to drive for about 40 miles on it before I could get it changed, and the tread was almost worn out in that distance, I didn't exceed 50mph, I drove as smoothly as possible and didn't indulge in anything wild - I had a lot of miles to do in the following two weeks and didn't want to wrap the hire car around the scenery on day two of my holiday.
In your case I would suggest that's its a long term storage issue, and not having been replaced after use - remember what I said about the tyres being designed for one use? - rather then having been used at excessive speed.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

US Berkeley Police officer confiscates hot dog vendor's money

Sorry Berkeley no more donations from me unless this is resolved.
What do you think?

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That's down to the university itself so Seti shouldn't be held responsible.

The reason I choose a 14 inch tire for the spare, instead of the 15 inch, is as follows:

185/65x14 22.7 inch outside diameter
185/60x15 23.7 inch outside diameter

I don't know if the trunk can handle a 15" tire, a 14" tire yes, I'll have to take a tape measure out and do some measuring, the advice on FEOA is for a 14" tire, since the 15" is an optional size, standard is 14" in the case of a Ford Escort zx2.

That's 1 inch difference - don't even think about using the 185/65x14 as a spare.

Actually I've just run the sizes through a tyre manufacturer's comparison calculator and come up with :
185/65x14 = 23.5
185/65x15 = 23.7
Did you remember that its 185/65x14 and not 185/60x14?

The 0.2 inch difference is just about acceptable, but, and a very big but, the sidewall flex on the 185/65x14 will be so much more than the 185/60x15 as to throw the whole car way out of balance as to make it dangerous even at quite low speeds, never mind freeway speeds. (skinnies get away with this by having much stiffer sidewalls, and clever construction, when compared to "normal" tyres)

The sizes I mentioned:

185/65x14 standard for My car's base configuration(Cool Coupe) 23.5"
185/60x15 what My car is equipped with as part of the Hot Coupe 23.7"
These sizes are updated and are from tiresize.com, a tire(tyre) calculator.
https://tiresize.com/tires/Ford/Escort/1999/ZX2/

These 2 are some of the tires My wheel wells can handle

Here's a size that is close to the 185/60x15:
195/55R15 23.4x7.7R15 23.4"
And it's a bit larger in width, but smaller in height, just 0.3" or 1.3% smaller.

I'm going to call My neighbor with the 185/60x15" spare tire and ask if I can see if it fits in My trunk, but I have to wait until 5:30pm, it's now 3:51pm.
185/65x14 is not one of them

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

Ok I talked to My neighbor who lent Me a spare tire a few days back, turns out the tire was a 185/65x14, so since the difference is only 0.2" between that and a 185/60x15, I'll just get another Sentury 185/60x15 84H tire and a 15"x5.5" Dorman steel rim, that has a 4x100 bolt pattern, and a 45mm offset.

That's $46.00(tire)+38.91(rim)+16.00(mounting & balancing) for a total of $100.91, and yes I didn't misspell Sentury, it's a tire that's made in Thailand for Discount Tire Warehouse which has a 40K mileage warranty.

And the tire is not a directional type, though it's supposed to be an all season tire. And then I'll have a full size spare, the other 3 Nankangs will get replaced, other people have reported problems with them, but not until after Xmas.

H rated tires are what came with My car as standard equipment.

My neighbor thinks part of the tread may have separated from the tire, since @ 75mph and above the car would vibrate, below that smooth.

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

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Don't you just hate smart aleks with good hand?eye coordination.

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no spare in my car

i'm wrong and everyone is right

i went to berkeley the other day to return an amazon package, it was weird, all these people going to school. i might go back to school someday

You're not the only one without a spare. - Last year when I got a new set of tyres for my car I could only get four and they are very different tread pattern and size to the "spare", which is now decorating my garage rather than being attached to the car. In the UK its not an offense (or MOT failure) not having a spare but it can be both if you have a spare that is not road legal (the "spare" was just OK), or of a different size or tread pattern to the road tyres.


I know what you mean about having to go past a uni at the start of year, all those freshers milling around like lost lambs, some with parents fussing; then the "seasoned" students arriving with cars loaded with their possessions. One day I might go back to one of my alma mater and do something different again - it would be nice to have yet another higher level degree ;-)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

BBC put together a really nice summary of the Cassini Mission.
Worth looking at.

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BBC put together a really nice summary of the Cassini Mission.
Worth looking at.

I agree, Carlos, it is rather good. When the BBC is not wringing it's hands over 'political correctness', 'diversity' and 'Brexit', it is very good at this sort of thing. Just yesterday, I was looking at a similar thing for Rosetta.

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Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!