This post has been a long time coming. Thank you to the many posts on PriusChat about adding a spare tire to a Gen 4 Prius. Having used a spare a number of times when I could not get to an open tire store on my Gen 2 Prius, I searched this website for options. This is my solution: I found a tire on eBay. Several local junkyards did not have one I think because the car was too new (I started looking in 2018). Unfortunately, although the rim was the right size, the rim's lug hole pattern was not. I purchased a rim from a Toyota dealer for about $100 with tax. America's Tire mounted the tire on the rim for no charge. They have been very nice with educating me about rims as well. The employee said that the tire looked new and will be stored in a dark place, has several years of service. The tire and rim in the trunk. The rim is just about the same height as the molded rims around the edge of the trunk. Made a floor using 1/8" plywood by tracing the car's removable floor. The back of the trunk is not even. The curved metal supports the sides of my wood floor. I glued a 1 x 2 wood block to the wood floor to support the middle of the back edge of it. I used tacky spray glue to attach felt to the underside of the wood floor. To prevent the steel rim from wearing down the felt, I glued on cardboard. You can see the indentation of the rim in the cardboard. In addition, you can see the bulge of the 1 x 2 wood block. One edge of the wood floor fully sits on the molded rim of the car . The other edge is truncated so I can bend the wood floor to get it into the trunk and to act as a handle to lift the floor up. The original Toyota floor fits on top of my wood floor to fill in the gaps. I used the screw form my Gen 2 Prius spare to secure the tire. Not only do I have a spare tire, I have room for all kinds of junk. Cost: Tire was about $120; rim was about $100; wood, felt, glue were about $20-25.
I’d wager it’ll fit any gen 4; doesn’t make any difference if the gen 4 came with 15” or 17” wheels either. The only way to make auto manufacturers bring back the spare is to stop buying cars that don’t come with them.
Good idea...I'll never drive a car without a spare tire. The only thing worse than a SPOF (single-point-of-failure) is having FOUR SPOF's when you have no spare! Two scenarios: -You get a flat and pull over. You get out the Toyota fix-a-flat stuff and put it into the tire and inflate it up...hoping and praying the leak isn't larger than 4 mm wide or isn't located on the sidewall. Once the tires is up to pressure (35 psi or so) you can only drive at max speed 45 mph. After driving for 3 miles, you have to stop and check pressure, again and refill if the leak isn't stopped. And it says you can only drive maximum of 60 miles on the fix-a-flat tire. Then, you have to go to a tire repair place and they have to remove the wheel from the rim, clean out the gunk and patch the hole (if it's fixable.) Since you used up the Toyota Fix A Flat kit, you need to buy another one...MSRP is $115. -You get a flat and pull over. You get out your scissor jack, lift the tire enough to remove it, and put on the spare and go on your way...not driving over 45 mph because it's a donut spare. You take the flat tire to a repair shop and get it patches or replaced.
But you're limited to 80 km/h with that donut spare and if the flat is on a front wheel, you have to put that donut spare on a rear wheel, take that rear wheel tire and replace that flat front wheel with it. That's because the circonference of the donut tire is not the same as the real tire and you'll put stress on the differential if you put the tire on the front. However, with the fix a flat, you'll also have to replace that TPMS since it will be clogged as well, so another extra expense.
Good catch, I didn't think of that! So for us with AWD models we'll also have to worry about stress on that little electric motor in the rear....wonderful!
Can you tell me the page of the Owner's Manual (or other Toyota Prius document) where you found that stipulation? I set the temp spare that came with my 2010* atop one of the regular tires from the car, on a concrete slab, pushed a carpenter square up against it to align the two, then took the square 'round the other side, repeated the excercise: the temp spare was about 1/8" smaller in diameter. * FWIW, with fourth gen Toyota switched from a 16" temp spare to 17". The specs of the latter result in it having a slightly smaller OD. There was no change to the regular tires between gen's.
I don't recall seeing it in the manual but it's something I've been told by mechanics in the past and it makes lots of sense when you think about it. If course, if the wheels are of different circumference.
