Picked up a screw in the passenger rear tyre, right in one of the tread lugs. I was hoping the factory off-road rubber might be robust enough to absorb the blow. No such luck. Pulled it and it was short but.......heard that telltale hissing noise. Damn. There goes my afternoon plan. Switched the spare out (thank you, Mr. Land Rover factory man who torqued my lug nuts to 300 ft-pounds). I have the spare wheel now mounted in the passenger rear, with only 7,000 miles, I will most likely just keep that one there and let the patched tire be the spare now. I know the truck does not monitor the spare (or at least doesn't display the pressure--not sure why on an off-road vehicle, I'd think it would be handy), so will it start monitoring now that it is mounted? The owner's manual seems to say so but I have not driven yet. Anyone pressed their full-size spare into service yet?

 

Ours did. I would assume yours will too.

Took a few miles to read it, but it refreshed.

 

Do I have to have the spare mounted or in the cargo area to make the system 'happy'? It is currently sitting in the garage until the tire shops open on Monday. I hate flat tires. Oh, and for anybody that is bemoaning the choice of 32" tires for the Defender (I was in the camp that thought they probably should have went to a 33" just for aesthetics), those things are damn heavy when you are trying to hold the spare wheel while undoing the last lug nut holding it on. God bless you guys that are going to oversized off-road tires in 275/55R20 that weigh 15 pounds more than the standard. I am a super fit guy that pretty much gets paid to work out and it was enough to manage without risking damage to a wheel or the car.

 

On your point of the lug nuts being absurdly tight, I hear you. Why can’t the manufacturer and the dealers when they service the car, torque the lug nuts to spec? My wive’s D5 was in for service a few days back, after that we had a flat. Taking the lug nuts off required a 4 feet lever!! I gave that feedback to the SA at the dealer, but I am now adopting the practice of loosening and torquing the lug nuts to spec after the car has been at the dealer for service. Takes 10 mins and can save a lot of cursing and effort on the road if something were to happen… 😀

 

Yeah for sure. I have a 24" breaker bar at the house and it was just robust enough to break the last stubborn one free. I could have applied more force but the way it was torquing the bar, I though for sure something was about to snap. I actually had to employ the old technique of tightening a bit before it would loosen. I highly advise anyone taking their Defender off-road to check that the wheel nuts are torqued to spec (103 ft-lbs by the way) and not set to 200+ or worse. It would be a real headache on the trail if you had to leave your truck sit overnight while you retrieve air tools and a compressor to run them.

Incidentally, the car recognized the spare after about 10 minutes of driving, all the pressures went to "(---)" in the instrument panel for about 30 seconds and then all 4 pressures reappeared and seem accurate. It is not throwing up any faults or warnings that the spare is not present. Now I have to cross my fingers that the tire shop does not destroy the alloy while carrying out the repair. It seems every time I get tire work done, they manage to give me a couple of scrapes and scratches. At least I have removed the wheel from the car so they can't damage them while doing that, or torque them to MAX with their air tools.

 

The stamen doesn't care where the spare is. It ol presumably only cares about the location of each tire pressure sensor in proximity to the wheel hub/axle/knuckle.

Ours didn't care whether the spare was hanging on the tailgate, lying in the cargo area, or sitting in the local shop awaiting replacement.

Yes they're heavy.

Yes they were way torqued.

 

You prompted me to go check the torque on my lug nuts. Surprised to find that all are on at about 110 foot pounds. I either had the correctly calibrated lug nut robot at Nitra or the dealer set the torque correctly as part of the delivery prep process.