I was under my recently acquired 99 ranger, checking for leaks, and anything that might cause me to fail state safety inspection. I did not see any problems, but I looked up and saw the spare tire appeared to have never been touched, it is a steel wheel that is heavily rusted, to the point where I would not feel safe using it. It looks like it was retrieved from a sunken ship. The tire said "temporary spare do not exceed 55mph" and did not look to be the same size as the tires on the truck, 265/75/15

My question is, does the spare tire well fit the full sized tire? If so I reckon I could find 1 used wheel/tire combo or a combination of a wheel and some cheap or used tire.

 

I believe they do. I had a full size spare unail I took it off.

 

I don't know if a 99 is different than an 02 but I had a 31" tire for my spare and it fit fully in there. It was tight but it fit. I now have a 32" tire in there but it does not full fit in there. It still goes up far enough that I don't have a problem with it. I do a lot of off-road trips and it has never contacted anything.

 

Thanks.

I found a wheel on ebay like the others on my truck. I will need to figure out the best tire to get a as a spare, I just got 4 new general grabber HTS/60. So I could get one more of the same tire, and possible go to a 5 tire rotation pattern, or try to find the cheapest off brand tire as a spare, maybe even a used one. There just are not too many choices in 265/75/15

 

I ran a set of those tires on my truck. Same size with a 16" rim. Worst set of tires I've ever owned. Didn't even get 30k.

 

Yikes

Hopefully my luck is better. I do not drive the truck that much so they will probably die of dry rot before wearing out.

The Uniroyals that were on there lasted 8 years and 40000 mi but for the past 4 years the truck was driven less than 5000 miles by the previous owner.