Oh good, I can tell my friend to ditch the clumsy spare and buy RFT's next time around. (Not.) Fifty miles would have gotten me home from most of the flats I've ever had, but not all of them. I guess I need an old Landrover, with the spare firmly bolted on the hood.(G)

 

run flats are evil!

Don't understand why Audi can't supply a donut and not an un-inflated spare…80's era cars had those (I worked in the tire business back then) and people would put them on and NOT inflate them….

 

"Don't understand why Audi can't supply a donut"
Well, now they will come and take back your car and send you back to remedial drivers' education class. The answer is one word: QUATRO.

Whenever you have two wheels on a limited slip or positraction differential, they must be the same size wheels (gross diameter, wheel with tire on it) or else the differential will quickly and insane and burn out.

So with two lsd's on the car, it becomes extremely important to ship a "same size" spare. Or something that can fool the car into thinking it is one.

I'm not sure if it is better or worse, on the models where they just pack an air compressor and an "Audi Slime" kit with no spare at all. I plan on using Slime, unles the sidewall has been damaged. In which case I'll have to turn off the stereo so I can unplug the subwoofer so I can dig out the balloon tire.

I'd rather have spinach. (The full sized fifth tire.) Which is not so bad, because you can rotate it with the other four and gain 25% more tire life from your first set of tires, including a full sized spare.

 

I agree I had them on my z06 and now on my wife's 14 glk250 she was stranded in Moab utah on a sat. After the tire repair closed till Monday.she was able to rent a car but it's a lesson learned.