Our spare tyre fitting service costs from AED 100: a technician comes to you, checks that your spare tyre is safe and correctly inflated, fits it, and stows the damaged tyre. It takes about 15–30 minutes on site. If the spare is flat, cracked or too old, we can bring a new tyre instead so you are not left driving on a weak spare.
What's included
- Call-out to your location, including the hard shoulder
- Release of under-floor or tailgate-mounted spares, including seized winch mechanisms
- Pressure check and top-up of the spare before fitting
- Age and condition check of the spare, with the DOT date read out
- Wheel nuts torqued to specification
- Damaged tyre stowed, with advice on whether it can be repaired
Signs you need it
- You have a flat and do not want to change the wheel yourself on a hot roadside
- The spare is mounted under the car and the winch is seized with sand and rust
- Your wheel nuts are over-tightened or you cannot find the locking-nut key adaptor
- You have never checked the spare and are about to drive to Oman or Liwa
- The spare has been in the car since it was new
How the job runs
- Call from where you are. Share a location pin and tell us the car. If you know the spare is a space-saver or is missing, say so, and we will bring a full-size tyre if needed.
- Spare checked first. Before anything else, the technician lowers and inspects the spare. Spares are often 10–20 psi low or several years old, and there is no point fitting one that will fail.
- Swap the wheel. The car is jacked at the correct lifting point, the damaged wheel comes off, the spare goes on and the nuts are torqued in a star pattern.
- Next steps. We tell you whether the damaged tyre can be repaired and, if not, quote a replacement. Many customers have it repaired or replaced on the same visit so the spare goes back in the boot.
Space-saver or full-size spare: what you can drive on
A space-saver spare, the thin wheel with a yellow or orange warning label, is limited to 80 km/h and should be used only to reach a repair, ideally within 80–100 km. It has less grip, a different diameter and usually needs 60 psi, far higher than a normal tyre.
A full-size spare, common on the Land Cruiser, Patrol, Prado, Pajero and Hilux, can be driven normally if it is in good condition and correctly inflated. The problem is that full-size spares mounted under the car or on the tailgate are exposed to heat, sand and sun for years and are rarely checked.
Many newer sedans and EVs, including several Hyundai, Kia, BMW and Tesla models, have no spare at all, just a sealant kit or run-flat tyres. If that is your car, our flat tyre repair or tyre replacement service is the right call instead.
Why spare tyres fail when you need them
The most common problem we find is low pressure. A spare loses roughly 1–2 psi a month, so one that has not been checked for a year may be at half pressure. Driving on it at highway speed overheats the sidewall.
The second problem is age. A spare on a 2018 Patrol may still have full tread, but at eight years old the rubber will be hard and may show fine cracks. In this climate we treat any spare over about six years as unreliable for anything but a short, slow trip.
- Check spare pressure monthly, alongside the other four tyres
- Read the DOT code; replace spares over about six years old
- Space-savers usually need 60 psi; full-size spares use the normal placard pressure
- Make sure the jack, wheel brace and locking-nut key are all in the car
- On under-floor spares, lower and raise the winch once a year so it does not seize
Changing to your spare safely at the roadside
Changing a wheel on a busy highway is one of the more dangerous things a driver does. On roads like Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road and the E11 between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, traffic passes at 120–140 km/h a metre or two from the hard shoulder.
When we attend a roadside spare fitting, the van parks behind your car with beacons on, a warning triangle goes out at least 50 metres back, and the work is done from the side away from traffic wherever the flat tyre allows. You wait behind the barrier, not inside the car.
Buying a new spare or upgrading a space-saver
If your spare is past its useful life, we can supply a new tyre in the same size and fit it to the spare rim, usually for the price of the tyre plus fitting. For 4x4 owners heading into the desert, a matching full-size spare in the same pattern as the road tyres is worth having.
Some owners want to replace a space-saver with a full-size wheel. That is possible when the boot well or under-floor cradle has room, which is not always the case on sedans. We can check the space and quote a matching rim and tyre.
Pricing
Spare tyre fitting is from AED 100 including call-out, spare inspection, inflation and fitting. If the spare is unsafe and you want a new tyre instead, the tyre is quoted on WhatsApp by brand and size, and fitting is included in the same visit. Repairing the damaged tyre on the same visit adds a small charge, quoted on site.
