I have a 2003 Scab with P265/70-17's. My spare was mounted at the factory with the valve stem facing up. It was a pain in the a$$ to check the air pressure. I took it off and placed it valve side down. It seemed to hold fine. I recently went to the dealer for an oil change/safety inspection. When I got the truck back, the tire was valve stem up. I inquired about this and the tech stated that the tire will not seat fully because too much slack will be present in the cable if it's valve side down. It seems odd to me that this would be an issue. The tech followed up by saying that the tire could come off while driving and injure someone. I know this would be a problem if it occurred, but it seems very unlikely to me. Have any of you all heard this before? Any issues with the tire placed valve side down? I moved it again, but would hate to hurt someone if it fell off.

 

I don't know about all what the tech was saying, but if the tire is snug up against the frame and you can't crank on the winch any more, then it's tight.... The cable has no way of knowing if it's valve side up or down... Just that it might have a bit more cable exposed due to the wheels offset being either 'up or down'.....

I did the same thing when I first got my truck. I turned the tire so the valve was down so I could check it without having to lower it. That worked great, but then I got to reading some posts and how some folks were having issues with the winch binding or rusting or just plain not working.....

I also noticed that a lot more 'crud' would accumulate on the inside of the wheel. Maybe not a big deal, but there you go..... You still get some crud on the wheel anyway, but just not as much that I've noticed....

Anyway, I decided to turn the wheel back around so the valve was up. The reason.... Well, that forces me to lower the wheel to give it a decent inspection and to remove the built up crud and to also 'excersise' the winch and shoot a bunch of lube into the mechanism and cable while it's down and then raise it up. The other thing is that when the tire is up against the frame, it tends to put little wear marks on the tire. By moving it from time to time, just keeps the wear marks to a minimum. I put some foam pipe insulation on the contact points and that helps too. Oh, one other little thing... When the tire is valve side down, it's a lot more difficult to remove the center hub part on the cable, because it's closer to the ground. You then have to lift the tire up and have more slack in the cable to remove it from the spare. When the tire is valve side up, the wheels offset allows for more room to just lower the cable and remove the center hub part of it without having to move the tire.....

That's just what I do. I usually check the spare every couple of months and it's not really a big deal to me. Better to know that the whole thing works then to just 'hope' it does when you really need it!!

Mitch

 

All your points are valid and make sense to me. Thanks for the input, have a great day