E-mail my wife sent to Subaru:
My husband and I love our new 2010 Forester Premium. However, there is one big, or should I say small problem. No full size spare tire. I was horrified to find out what was required to change a flat tire because of the AWD system. As a woman, I am scared to death about having a flat at 3AM. I know that I can call Subaru road side assistance, but it will take time for them to get to me. Why does Subaru not off a full sized spare tire in the US market? Most of the world gets one when they purchase a Subaru. If I have a flat on the front, I have to take a tire off of the rear, put the space saver spare on the rear, then take the flat tire off of the front and put the good tire that was on the rear, on the front.After all that, I have to disable the AWD system! That will be very unsafe to do. If I had a full sized spare, those steps could be avoided. Also, the owners manual goes into great detail about using tires of different sizes. So why does Subaru give me a small spare tire that goes directly in the face of that advice? Will Subaru sell me a full sized spare (tire and wheel) at cost to replace the space saver spare? Subaru has built a great reputation the world over on the safety and performance of its AWD vehicles. Providing a space saver spare tire goes against everything that Subaru stands for.
Subaru e-mail response:
My husband and I love our new 2010 Forester Premium. However, there is one big, or should I say small problem. No full size spare tire. I was horrified to find out what was required to change a flat tire because of the AWD system. As a woman, I am scared to death about having a flat at 3AM. I know that I can call Subaru road side assistance, but it will take time for them to get to me. Why does Subaru not off a full sized spare tire in the US market? Most of the world gets one when they purchase a Subaru. If I have a flat on the front, I have to take a tire off of the rear, put the space saver spare on the rear, then take the flat tire off of the front and put the good tire that was on the rear, on the front.After all that, I have to disable the AWD system! That will be very unsafe to do. If I had a full sized spare, those steps could be avoided. Also, the owners manual goes into great detail about using tires of different sizes. So why does Subaru give me a small spare tire that goes directly in the face of that advice? Will Subaru sell me a full sized spare (tire and wheel) at cost to replace the space saver spare? Subaru has built a great reputation the world over on the safety and performance of its AWD vehicles. Providing a space saver spare tire goes against everything that Subaru stands for.
Subaru e-mail response:
Thank you for your recent e-mail to Subaru of America, Inc. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us. We are happy to hear that you love your new Forester...for the most part.
The precautions you mentioned (as also mentioned in the owner's manual) are the proper procedures for spare tire usage. Please review the temporary spare tire section of your owner's manual beginning on page 9-2. The temporary spare tire is to be used for emergency use only and should be replaced as soon as possible.
While we do not offer a full size spare tire for our vehicles, we appreciate your comments. Your concerns are important to us and will be noted in our Customer/Dealer Services database. We use such information to continually track, review and consider the performance of our products, always with the intentions of improving upon them. In the past, input from our customers has been helpful in initiating changes to our newer models. We hope to continually improve our products and appreciate your feedback.
If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us again. Thank you for the opportunity to be of service and we wish you many safe happy miles in your Forester.