Spare tyre, Space saver or Nothing at all.
There appears to be growing a trend for car manufactures to eliminate the addition of the good old spare tyre, there was a time when it was taken for granted that a car come with a jack and a spare tyre, but not any more, some vehicles may have a temporary spare tyre sometimes called a space saver, these are tyres that are tiny compared to the size of wheel and tyre that are fitted to the car, only the other day I see a Saab 9-5 overtake me with a space saver on one of the front hubs, this seemed strange at the time, as I always believed that these wheels were just to get you to the next garage where you can get the tyre fixed and then you are on your way.
The RACV of Australia have been testing these space saver wheels and have found that they lose traction very quickly, in the case of large four wheel drive vehicles the loss of traction can be as high as 13%, which when travelling at speed on a bend could be disastrous for all around. With this increase in the use of space savers drivers should be aware of the possible dangers.