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Originally Posted by LobsterB I am not sure whether it was discussed earlier in this thread. The spare 5th tyre is a space saver (with a speed limit of 80kmph) and not a regular sized one. |
Is it mentioned somewhere? Not sure which variant you have, but on my ZXO, spare tyre size is 205/65R16 Bridgestone and rating is 95S implying 180 kmph!
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I had a puncture (with a loud enough sound to notice) on a recent highway trip (followed by rapid loss of tyre pressure to zero in TPMS) and the puncture hole was too big for the normal wick based puncture kit. Fortunately was able to find a decently equipped highway puncture shop guy to fix it with a patch. Seriously thinking of moving to a better set of tyres...
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Sudden loss of tyre pressure to zero on highway speed sounds scary, next to a burst. Hope everyone was safe. What speed were you at when it happened and did you have trouble maintaining control?
BTW, I did get the delivery a day before yesterday. For tyres and alloy, this is what I did- Before the delivery, they did discuss options of getting new alloys (original Toyota) /tyres from them. Initially they had said they will buy back stock wheel and tyres as well, but later denied it. That means if I had got new stuff from them, the onus of selling old ones would be on me. Apart from that, they finally told me that none of the alloys meant for other Toyota vehicles (Hyrider, Crysta, Fortuner) are compatible with hycross and that only option I had was to get alloys that come with VX/GX models. I didn't really like those much, especially their color/finish. I was a bit disappointed and had reluctantly decided to opt for the plan B which was to keep the stock alloys and upgrade only the tyres to UC6 with the same size.
Later I just thought of quickly checking out after-market options online. In no time it showed a few olx listings which had ZX/ZXO 18" alloy as well as other alloys from other Toyota cars on sale. Called the guy and he said he has many wheels in different sizes which will fit hycross without any issues. I guessed those would be either duplicate/imitation products or stock wheels from people like me selling new wheels for upgrade reasons. Visited his place and saw what all he had. To my (pleasant!) surprise, he told me that these are all original Toyota wheels from OEM factories and that he even supplies them to Toyota dealers (who sell them at much higher rates) as well as other shops. It wasn't too hard to believe looking at the amount of stock he had and overall quality of the products, packaging and markings on those wheels. For hycross, he showed me a few crysta and hyrider alloys. I didn't want to take any chances and hence tried to thoroughly check all wheel specs to make sure they are really compatible. These shop guys generally check only bolt pattern and PCD, because those things are a must otherwise it is not really possible to use it at all, but ignore bore/hub size, bolt hole size and offset. I noticed that hub size and PCD, bolt hole size and shape was exactly the same for crysta wheels and hycross. These cars have unusual nut and bolt hole shapes! wheel surface around hole edge and the bolt are flat instead of usual cone shape, and the nut has washers (which don't come off even when removed). The bolt hole size and possibly the shape (don't remember exactly) for hyrider was different from hycross/crysta (I believe this is for the latest 2023 crysta, older models could be different). I was fully convinced that crysta alloys are fully compatible with hycross, hence wend ahead with a 16" in machine finish/dark grey combination design. Other reasons were that I liked that specific design over hyrider, and hyrider was 17" (just 1" down size as against 2" of crysta). My daughter actually liked it more than stock 18". Only thing that was different was that the offset was off by 10 or 20 mm and rim width was 6J instead of original 7J. I was fairly confident that these differences should be fine. Moreover, the guy told me that offset difference is just to account for the difference in rim widths so as to maintain same face level after mounting. That was convincing and evident when I checked it by installing a sample on a hub. I paired these alloys with 205/65R16 UC6 tyres. It has -1.5% or so diameter/circumference error (within 2% limit) and on conservative side (odometer speed will be slightly higher than actual). Ideally, I wanted to keep tyre width at 225 itself, but didn't do that as maximum recommended is 205 for a 6J alloy. This size happens to be the same as spare wheel that came with the car.
A set of 4 wheels costed me ~48k and another ~31k for 4 tyres. He deducted 60k for stock wheels and tyres (which I believe amounts to about 60% of its fair market cost, at his rates. Dealers would ask for much higher than that. I finally paid around 20k inclusive of installation/balancing.
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1. Put the car in Neutral with brakes engaged.
2. Engage Parking brake and release brakes.
3. Shift the gear lever to P.
Got used to doing this in the hills and now do it everywhere.
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I believe this recommendation applies to older cars which didn't have electronic parking brakes? It is meant to avoid gear cogs/lock mechanism inside gearbox taking all the load of parked vehicle and thereby avoiding premature failure/wear and associated costly repairs. I guess this car, however, must be controlling everything electronically with good enough intelligence built into it. Moreover, as we move the liver from D to P, it goes through N by design so steps 1 and 3 are naturally followed, while 2 could be redundant as it is expected to engage parking brake on its own as someone said. It should be on safer side if one is used to this sequence though.
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I would say it's not really needed. The pressures shown are very accurate down to the last PSI.
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The itch to replace the stock goodyears with michelin primacy tyres is too strong these days.
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My main intention was to monitor spare wheel in addition to other 4, followed by added temperature monitoring. Being able to check it from mobile or getting alerts on it would be a bonus. I guess temperature monitoring is also may not be that necessary since overheating should indirectly reflect in pressure itself- either overheating causing over-inflation or under-inflation leading to overheating. Sine we can't fix 2 sensors on the same valve, I dropped that idea anyway. It is not feasible to remove original sensors and replace them with new ones because in that case the car's system would permanently complain about missing pressure sensors!
Regarding comparison of UC6s with stock, I can't really provide relative feedback since I hardly used the stock wheels at all. With the new tyres, I did feel easily noticeable difference in ride quality. Speed breakers, potholes and uneven road surfaces etc. are cushioned much better as expected, but part of this could be placebo too. I did not notice any unusual wheel vibrations or steering pull or heaviness/lightness in steering at all, it is very much same as before. In terms of noise though, I felt like road noise is higher than what I had expected being new tyres and going by rave reviews about UC6. May be I am expecting too much from them. Also I don't really have a good reference point as I didn't use original tyres much.
After all, as ironic and silly it may sound, I ended up paying 20k to downsize both wheel and tyre sizes
![LOL](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/LOL.png)
Tyre shop owner told me that I am not alone, a few others had already done that before! Hope these wheels serve me better overall. I was concerned about both new wheels and tyres looking too puny and less attractive than originals, but eventually I don't feel so. To me, they are subjectively looking neither small/disproportionate for the car, nor any downgrade in looks department.