Space saver tyres

[rondeo]

Full size LX steel wheels rim size is 6.5Jx16 ET50, which is stamped on steel rims near the valve.
They were also standard on some Foci. PCD is 5x108.

Alloys on the Zetec are pretty unambiguous, Mondeo only.

If the wheels are from a wreck, check for damage to the rims, I went back twice (third time lucky).

The difference in weight is up to 10 kg or two bags of spuds.
The floor on my wagon doesn't fit and is up to 50 mm higher with a full size tyre.
I'd take it somehow restrained on a long trip or
otherwise maybebe some meters under, mentally, doing 80 km/h.

What surprised me was the alloys were heavier than the steel wheels:

Alloys with near new tyre: 21kg

Space saver: 13kg

Steel with nearly worn out tyre: 17kg

According to the bathroom scales.

I don't think it's worth having a space saver on long trips.
I Google it's 5 flats per lifetime.
Two more for me?

[R12RT]

My MD Mondeo didn't come with any sort of spare. Just a bottle of goop and an air compressor.

At first i was a little upset with this and thought about sourcing a spare and tools. Then I stopped to think about it.

Over the last 37 years if driving I have never had to change a tyre on the side of the road. I travelled a full circle of Australia and a return trip to Adelaide from Perth and didn't carry a spare.

I still don't carry a spare.

[AlanD]

I've just gone through this with the MD and gotten frustrated with the process.

You can fit a 195/65R16 wheel and tyre into the spare wheel depression and the floor will fit as normal (maybe a slightly higher level but less than 10 mm) so this looked like a likely solution.

The nice thing was that the rolling radius of such a wheel and tyre was within 4mm of the road wheels.

Two problems:

1. the only tyres in that size are commercial evidently but this didn't worry me as it was only going to get used as a spare, and
2. Would a 16 inch wheel clear the brake calipers?

You might think so since the tyre placard shows a 16 inch tyre size, but the local Bridgestone agent was good enough to find a 16 inch focus alloy rim that is supposed to fit the Mondeo but when tried on the front axle it fouled the caliper - go figure.

I have 17 inch spare for the MA which gets carried in the boot on long trips and this would be ok providing I fit 235/50R17 rubber to it to get the correct rolling radius but that will lift the floor in the wagon by 40 mm which is what I'm trying to avoid.

The space saver in the wagon is 10% smaller in diameter than the road wheels. I think that will require that the ESC is switched off irrespective of where it gets fitted and if the puncture is in a front tyre then the differential is going to get some work. My back of envelope calculations suggest it would be like driving on a circle of 17 metre diameter for as long as it is in use. That's close to 750 circles if the nearest tyre shop is 40 klicks away

So if I stick with the space saver and I get a front flat I'm going to be changing two wheels I guess - or I fit the new rubber to the MA spare wheel and carry it in the wagon load area - luckily the cargo fence in the load area will prevent it from bouncing about.

I have not given up on a solution, and if I find one I'll post it up. I'm going to investigate a steel 16 inch wheel (if I can find one with the correct stud PCD). It may have thinner section than an alloy which would give a bigger diameter in the wheel dish. The alloy that we tried didn't foul by a great margin, I think I only need a couple of mm - watch this space.

Cheers

[Mondaveo]

My MC wagon came with a full-size (16") spare wheel, which was quite lucky I thought.
The floor mat is a different moulding (with a curved lip at the rear) and is propped up by dense foam inserts to sit flat and level over the spare wheel.

I'm not sure if it only came on Titanium models or was a factory option on the other grades too. If rondeo isn't sick of chasing through wreckers' yards yet, he could look for one which would give a better outcome with the new full-size spare in his wagon.

Unfortunately with my Titanium having 18" wheels, a 16" spare is a mismatched size and thus marked as a temporary spare with 80km/h speed limit sticker - like a space saver. I wanted to have a properly matched spare. Again like Zetec, the alloy wheel style on Titanium is unique to Mondeo (Focus has similar but not exact styles, but would nonetheless fit). I had an internet search alert saved for about a year before one popped up on Gumtree (new & unused) and I bought it.

The thing I didn't expect was the 18" wheel did not fit in place of the 16" one. The width should be fine, but the tyre has a larger diameter that is just a bit too much and won't go all the way down into the spare wheel depression, frustratingly enough. I'm hoping that swapping the new tyre for a worn one will make enough difference to get it to fit flush (and then that I never have to actually use the spare as it's clear it won't accommodate the road wheel I change...).

[AlanD]

Originally Posted by Mondaveo

My MC wagon came with a full-size (16") spare wheel, which was quite lucky I thought...).

Hi Mondaveo,

And others,

I thought I had found a wheel and the seller was (only) 80 klicks away from me. A bit of dialogue got an OK to try the wheel for fit.

It was a steel 16 inch wheel labelled "Mondeo 16 x 6.5 52.5 mm offset" so things were looking good until we tried to fit it to the front axle and , like the alloy, fouled the brake caliper.

So I'm beginning to think the diesel engine cars have beefier front brakes to counter the greater weight of the diesel engine. And I note on the tyre placard that no 16 inch size is recorded for diesel engines. But I find such a difference surprising.

Mondaveo might care to tell me if his car is a petrol engine vehicle - I'm assuming the 16 inch full sized spare he has fits the front axle without a problem.

Tomorrow I'm going to check clearances on the rear axle, and if they are greater than the front get a suitable wheel and tyre as a spre for the back. If a puncture occurs on the front I am resigning myself to a double wheel change. Spare to a back wheel then the wheel taken off goes to the front.

Again - watch this space.

Cheers

[Mondaveo]

Originally Posted by AlanD

Mondaveo might care to tell me if his car is a petrol engine vehicle - I'm assuming the 16 inch full sized spare he has fits the front axle without a problem.

It's a wagon, in Titanium trim... ergo, the only possibility is that my car is diesel engined too.
But it's an MC, versus you're chasing around in an MD... I think it's more likely that the bigger brake is an MD/MC difference rather than diesel/petrol. Base model MC started with a 16" wheel, but I believe with MD they start at 17" now?

Worth mentioning, I've never had the 16" wheel on the car myself... but the panel beaters certainly used it while my damaged front wheel was being reconditioned, and I didn't hear anything about it not fitting. But who knows? I just found that the factory road wheels don't fit in the spare wheel well, so it would surely be icing on the cake if the factory spare wheel doesn't fit on the axle...

[rondeo]

I now have full size spares. One 17" factory alloy from a wreck fits the MC zetec diesel and one 16" steel from a focus fits the MC LX diesel .
The wrecker was OK to sell one alloy wheel because the others were damaged.

The 16" almost fits the spare well (1cm) it's within a mm of it's life.
The 17" alloy is about 5cm high, being near new.


Re the MD, Google tells me the disc/caliper clearance is designated the 'X factor',
which sounds about right:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_sizing#X-factor

[AlanD]

Originally Posted by Mondaveo

I think it's more likely that the bigger brake is an MD/MC difference rather than diesel/petrol. Base model MC started with a 16" wheel, but I believe with MD they start at 17" now?

Thanks for the reply,

You may well be correct, In Europe the cars are available with 16 inch rims (Go here for a full run down: https://www.wheel-size.com/size/ford/mondeo/2016/ quite a useful site.)

Comparing the front brakes on our two cars I have not noted any visual difference but this doesn't mean that on the MD the front calipers are situated in exactly the same place on the suspension hardware as is the case on the MA.

I also came across a site in Europe where they show 16 inch wheels for Mk IV builds separately from Mk V builds. (MA, MB, and MC Oz designations are Eu Mk IV and the MD is a Mk V)

I have a question awaiting a reply regarding supply and if they will ship a single wheel - they advertise them in lots of four, but if there are another three Mondeo MD wagon owners looking for full sized spares I'll be tempted to buy a full set if that is the only way to get one that fits the front of an MD car. They might be OK in the MD Hatch but I have not looked at the spare well in one of those. I know that the well in our MA sedan doesn't allow the full sized 17 inch wheel and tyre to fit. Even in the MD wagon the full sized wheel (235/45R18 tyre) causes the floor to be about 40mm higher than normal.

I can say that a 195/65 R16 tyre allows the floor to be flat because the guy I visited yesterday had one of those and we tried it - lovely fit.

Anyone who is interested in a full sized spare in the MD cars might like to PM me with their interest - the wheel would turn out to be about $Au110 roughly, exclusive of freight costs in OZ - I live in West Gippsland, Warragul area.

Cheers

[rondeo]

M, A, and C owners wishing to avoid the 80km/h limit
could use a steel rim 6jx16ET50, 5x108, 63.4 bore
as found on Mondeos LX and some Foci, with a 195/60R16 tyre,
as per AlanD below.

The load rating is a little lower, but speed is OK, and it seems
the wheel will fit in the well.

One disadvantage is not being rotatable, but should be OK for 10 years in the well?

I'm thinking to go that way, 10y is an optimistic estimate of my life remaining due to age. I vividly remember an old lady saying as she polished her mini minor, 'after all, this is my last car'. Please don't be sad though, it happens to us all.

I just returned from a long trip and saw two puncture recipients by the side of the road. I can tell you I was feeling pretty cool with my spare.

MD owners with compressors and goop are also advised not to exceed 80km/h, as far as I read in the owner's manual..

[AlanD]

Well, it's becoming clearer why I'm having trouble with 16 inch wheels fouling.

Had the rear wheel off the MD today to check if there was sufficient clearance to allow a 16 inch wheel to fit - it's problematical.

But what was surprising was that a rough check on the rotor diameter showed a measurement of about 315mm and I know that the MA has 302 mm dia rotors, as do MB and MC versions of the car SFAIK.

Some further research via after market parts suppliers shows that the 300mm front and 302mm rear rotors are only good for MD versions up to build year 2015, but when in the year isn't stated at the sites I looked at - and I'll bet Ford Oz don't know either..

Our car was built in Sept 2016 and has the larger diameter rotors, so this running change predates that.

I would suggest some caution if you are sourcing brake rotors and the build date lies between Jan 2016 and Sept 2016 because somewhere in that window the change occurred.

The change pushes the calliper 8mm further away from the axle centreline and is sufficient to cause calliper fouling for a 16 inch wheel.

My problem could be solved by using a 17 inch diameter wheel, but I haven't seen one of those in a 6.5 inch width with the correct lug nut PCD - and in any event the narrowest tyre size seems to be 205 mm, which would lift the floor by 10 mm, and that is what I'm trying to avoid.

Cheers