eus

My 2014 Q5 comes with a deflated mini spare tire, that looks ridiculously compact when its deflated.

I recently had the misfortune of running over a massive screw (with a washer as well). I ended up just taking the wheel off and taking my wife's car to the tireshop to fix it, because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of using the spare.

I was hesitant to use the spare because I'm not sure if it deflates back to the small size to put it back into the trunk. I've never dealt with one of these before, so I'm wondering if anyone has had to use one. Is it easy to deflate it back to "storage" size? Any tricks to doing that?

AudiQ5sleeper

the tire will deflate once you release all its pressure from the tire. It will fold itself back into its original shape. its actually pretty cool to see.

idale

Note that the manual says that it could take a few hours to fully return to shape. Though you can encourage it by pushing it back to shape so it doesn't take as long (in case it doesn't happen to fully collapse just from deflating).

eus

Thanks guys! I'll try this out next time (hopefully never).

skl1

Went on roundtrip recently from IA to AZ and back. Since we had the space, I took a spare Goodyear tire that came on the car and put it on the trunk just in case. I'd replaced the OEM tires with all season Continentals. Probably overkill, but I didn't want to screw with that either if I was in the middle of western KS or NM.

Figured some shop could replace the tire if disaster occurred. Luckily it didn't. Only mishap was a nice rock chip coming home in eastern AZ- had it fixed a couple hours later at a Safelite store in Albuquerque...

AudiQ5sleeper

remove the tire valve stem inside the valve. im sure its gonna deflate asap. lol thats how i did mine. it was actually soooooo interesting seeing it deflate. thats just me thou haha

spijun

I used the spare wheel and it is true that needs time to return to its original folded form.
It's not just the air, but the system and the structure of the spare tire

Q5 Bob

I dread the day that I have to use that thing.

AudiQ5sleeper

Mine only took two minute to deflate and fold itself back into its collapse size

idale

It's not that bad, it's just not quite as quick and simple as a standard spare. I really wish manufacturers didn't get rid of the full-size spares, I liked being able to just stick on a real replacement and get going right away instead of all the limitations the compacts have.