I recently scuffed my 18" Zenith on a curb - drat ! Price to repair was £40, but amazingly I found a refurbished one on eBay and paid £40 - bargain of the century. So I now have a spare Zenith which I will refurb in my own time and a soon to be spare 18" tyre to go with it. I would like to use this as my spare instead of the steel one - the brand new spare 16" tyre is going to find a new home on the wifes car.

I realise that the 18 tyre is ging to be 20mm higher (225 vs 205) and I was wondering if anyone had been able to overcome this by increasing the height of the boot floor to make the wheel well that bit deeper. I was thinking that a craftily cut piece of 20mm Kingspan (house wall unsulation) would be just the ticket and provide a bit of extra sound insulation. Anyone care to comment or offer some advice............cheers

Sounds like a good idea to me

Do'nt know Kinngspan but as long it does not compress and you cover the majority of the floor should be a good solution

Polysyrene strips/blocks fitted (glued ?) either side of the wheel in a "lattice" structure similar to VW boot floor raising inserts are the best way to go .Check height required first with straightedge across the wheel/foor . The voids in the lattice stucture will give space for tools / oddments etc. You may not want to consider buying the VW inserts :-VW P/Nos 1K6858857B & C ( lh & rh ) cost about £14 ea. may be too high for your application ( raise floor by about 90mm) but will give you the general idea. You may find that the plastic "bolt & hand wheel" used to clamp the steel wheel is too short . If so order the longer version VW P/No. 1K0803899D . I have these VW parts in my Golf MK6 with a 12mm plywood floor piece on top with boot mat ontop of that.. The VW inserts are for raising the MK6 spacesaver wheel recess to suit full size 205/55/16 alloy wheel but will acommodate larger tyre/wheel.

Edited 14 March, 201016 yr by vwcabriolet1971