Spare tire

[PeerLovell]

My van is an 03 and I thought it might be a good idea to finally familiarize myself with how the spare tire is released and to make sure everything works.

The manual says to just wind down the cable and the tire should come down with it.

Well, the cable unwinds all the way but something is still holding the spare wheel in place. It's loose and rocking but there appears to be something on the "upside" of the retainer block that isn't letting go.

I've tried beating it to death and using a big pry bar but it won't budge. Am I missing something here?

[BrianS]

Hehehe.... just went thru this with my '01, so I KNOW what a pain it is!!

If you look thru the center of the spare, in the end of the square tube that the cable goes into, there is some kind of safety latch. I'm assuming it is there to hold the tire up instead of using just the cable like they used to on earlier models. In any event, on the outside of the square tube you will see a square piece of metal. Push it up towards the van and the plastic "T" should drop out of the tube and allow you to lower the tire. NOTE: It works MUCH better when someone supports the spare as this prevents it from dropping down onto whatever body part happens to be located under it.

There "apparently" is a mechanism in place to pull this safety catch back, but it sounds like yours is just the same as mine and has dissapeared,

Brian

[yarisncaravan]

i would just use a pry bar to release the spare thats what i had to do to make it so it will drop