Spare tire

[crazbs53]

Hi,
I just purchased a 1999 dodge xplorer 230xlwt and the spare tire is gone. Does anyone know if that would be a full size spare or not?
Thanks for any help!

[D&J Phillips]

I'm not sure how much I can help but I think it should be a full size spare.
I also have a 1999 230xlwt and mine also had no spare when I bought it.
I think mine had been altered by some previous owner and I'll explain why I say that.
I bought mine from a dealer so didn't get to talk to the previous owner and therefore have no history on it.
I think that originally from the factory, all 6 wheels were the same offset so any wheel could be used in any location.
Someone converted mine to aluminum wheels where the fronts are not the same deep dish offset as the rears so the front wheels cannot be used on the rear.
Because of that I bought a stock Dodge van steel wheel that fits the front and put that under the rear (stock spare tire mounting space) so I have a front spare. I also bought a 12v compressor and tire patch/plug kit in case of a rear flat....
My logic was that I could limp on one flat rear if needed - not sure how well that would work but, knock on wood, haven't had to test the theory.
Anyway, if yours has the extreme offset front wheels that are the same are the rear, you will be good with one spare.

Dave

[yvairguy]

Yes it would be a full size spare and it will only fit in the front.

When these were built they used adapters to add the dual rear wheels. The good news is these rigs are way more stable than their single wheel counterparts. The bad news it the spare wont fit the rear axle. You may be able to do something if you removed both rear wheels and the dual adapter to limp in somewhere but I don't know if any of that hardware would be able to bolt on the factory spare to the rear axle. I even checked a manual I was able to find for the xplorers and I couldn't find where they addressed this anywhere.

I have thought about "upgrading" the front rotors so they would have the proper offset and being able to run a spare that would fit in any position. I have also thought about replacing the whole back bumper and when I do have it set up so I can add a spare that will fit the rear wheels.

Other than my wife's car this is the only vehicle I have roadside assistance on, and will likely keep it on, for this reason if no other.

[Jill Ellis]

On my 2014 town n country limited. N. Go this is a poor design for Chrysler on this imperfect edition since they are the maximum price vehicle in it class on one of my least costly vehicles they have a spare tire on it but on this nice luxury vehicle there is no spare tire!

[nicaland]

It's true that these were equipped with a spare that only fits the front. I had a rear tire come apart in Big Bend last year, and just removed it and continued on with only one tire on that side but first aired it up to 100 PSI (I normally run 65-75 PSI in the rears depending on how much the van is loaded) and carried on with no issues. It was inconvenient to have to store the blown tire behind the front seats until I was able to get it replaced in Marathon. I normally travel with a Honda XL 125S that sits on a receiver hitch mount motorcycle carrier but am considering replacing it on suitable trips with my recently purchased folding E-bike, a Lectric XP, and by modifying the motorcycle carrier just a bit I could keep it folded on one side of the carrier, and mount a rear spare on the other side. This combination would also have the advantage of being about 120 lbs. less weight cantilevered off the back of the van. A simpler solution of course if you don't carry a two wheeled toad around with you would be to simply buy or fabricate a spare carrier that mounts on the receiver.

[Joe]

We have a 1995 Dodge 3500 Xplorer. The spare is full size and mounted on a rack on rear of vehicle. It has a hard cover with the Xplorer logo on it.