New one for me: Lost spare tire

Nuke

Nuke

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My 4th gen is my 3rd 4Runner; 22 years of 4Runner ownership including 11 years with undercarriage mounted spare tires. I was in Chicago for a wedding this past weekend, 1100 miles from my home in Florida, when my TPMS light came on a short time after hitting an odd "bump". What was strange was the light blinked for a bit before going solid. Seeing that I was in a tuxedo, it was late, dark, cold and raining, I simply assumed it was the cold setting off the spare tire sensor due to pressure drop from the cold. We were heading back to Florida so I checked the 4 main tires the next morning andd figured I'd take care of the spare back in Florida. Somewhere in Georgia while filling up (again, raining and miserable), I got down to look (don't know why) and... NO SPARE. So I'm thinking either stolen while at the wedding reception (south side of Chicago so that's a GOOD possibility) or busted free.

I took a few pics and here's what I found: The steel cable from the lowering mechanism looks either cut or broken. It's hard to tell. Anyone ever see this before?
 

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My T100 dropped its spare after an off road jump I took I little too fast. The undercarriage and mount were rusted 5x worse than your 4r mount...
 
Unfortunately it looks as though someone has helped themselves to your spare. My '99 spent 10+ years in Chicago (salt & rust) and I had a heck of a time cutting the spare loose so I'm quite certain it didn't just fall off. That's an awfully clean clean line.
 
many of the cable strands appear to have been broken for some time now so I would say that it broke and just fell off. The tire/wheel is pretty heavy. Good thing to check from time to time. I just had mine down and oiled the cable and mechanizum - noticed a couple broken strands.
 
not sure if stolen or not... both those photo's show different evidence..

but.


That sucks... but this style is 100 times better than the old link chain method on the older Toyota. They would rust up in about 2 weeks and if you made the mistake of waiting longer than about 6 months to try and move it, you were screwed...

But.... those damn chain links never broke. :) Your spare tire was a permanent attachment to your truck!
 
In my opinion that definitely looks like that cable was cut. The lines are simply to clean to just have been torn off.
 
Yep,too clean a cut and it wouldn't have just given way at once like that if it broke,you would've had different lenghts of strands for sure.
 
:iagree:

From those pics, there are too many clean ends that shine. It has to have been cut. If it had come loose from corrosion, the cable ends would be rusted, and most likely not uniformly even in length.
 
That's terrible someone would do that to you. Is that a new low? Stealing a spare tire rather than leaving the truck on blocks and taking the wheels....I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out WHY they would simply steal just the spare?
In any case, glad you didn't find out the "hard way" if you happened to have gotten a flat on the way home!
 
I dunno... perhaps the wheel locks are more of a deterent than I had thought but I had heard that they're childs play for a pro. Maybe being under the car at night in a dark parking lot is less conspicuous than being beside it.
 
Unfortunately this and getting your center caps stolen are very common problems out here in the Dominican Republic. One solution to the whole spare tire ordeal has been buying one of those chains that people use for bicycle security as illustrated in the picture below. May not be pretty but pretty effective, and as for the center caps they mostly use steel wire (same as in bicycle brakes) to tie the ring behind the center cap to one of the lug nuts.

IMG-20111206-00069.jpg
 

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I'm sure that works but I could just imagine trying to drop that tire in the middle of nowhere in complete darkness.
 
Basically having the spare under the vehicle makes a bit difficult as it is. It just adds more fun to the ordeal...lol
 
By the way, the way things are out here, if i get a flat tire on a dark road, that baby is running flat till i get home or at least a very illuminated gas station regardless if the spare is under the car or in the trunk.
 
acer0611 said:
By the way, the way things are out here, if i get a flat tire on a dark road, that baby is running flat till i get home or at least a very illuminated gas station regardless if the spare is under the car or in the trunk.
Click to expand...

Time for some James Bond inspired mods. :)
 
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