SurvivalRing
Rich Fleetwood - Founder - author/coder/podcaster
I bought my 2019 Dodge Grand Caravan in late September 2021, first vehicle I’ve ever purchased completely online, and even had it delivered to Rawlins, from Longmont, Co.
I’ve been VERY happy with the purchase, even though the van was high mileage. This was my only worry, but the maintenance records and were immaculately taken care of, and the van has been totally trouble free.
I’ve not had a single issue with ANYTHING on this van, and every single system still works perfectly. The previous owner was based in Casper, and my living in Wyoming for almost 23 years (except for April 2017 thru October 2019) allows me to fully understand the phrase “highway miles”…and this van is a pristine example of what that means.
The only shortcoming I’ve found was that there was no spare tire…and the factory donut spare resided underneath the floor, between the front seats. All four tires mounted right now are still in good condition, with about 60% tread left. I’ll be replacing the front tires in the next two months, and the rear two months after that.
The record snow fall wreaked havoc with my joy in the icy, slushy, snowy mix on all roads in town since New Year’s Day…but I still got around. New tires will help before the next blizzard occurs.
As for a spare, I can get a brand new rim at Walmart.com for $93. The tires are $85 and change each, again from Walmart.com. The nearest salvage yards are hours away in every direction…so new spare upgrade works.
Our local Walmart doesn’t have a Tire/Lube shop, and I’ll be ordering them online, with “Site to Store”, which I’ve done for two previous vehicles. I’ll be having them mounted at the local Goodyear shop. I’ll keep one of the front tires to mount on the new rim.
A full size spare is always optimal on any vehicle, but this planned upgrade won’t fit under the floor. I have to find another place for it.
Which brings me to alternatives ::
A) inside the van…or
B) outside the van
The DGC normally has stow and go seating, where the middle and back row seats fold completely into the floor, leaving a flat surface for hauling anything you need. There is no place to solidly mount a spare anywhere in the interior.
My van has a middle bench seat, that doesn’t fold into the floor, but it is removable. Where The stow and go seats would disappear into the floor, the floor has depressions for massive storage space. The floor in front of the bench seat has folding hinged panels that can be lifted up, giving a large amount of storage there…but not enough to fit a full size spare underneath.
Behind the rear row of seats, I’ve got two storage crates with tools, cold weather gear, big out bags, a twin size inflatable bed and hand powered air pump…purchased on Walmart clearance after a trip to DIA to pick up granddaughter turned into a two day survival test of sleeping on a VERY uncomfortable van floor) and such, after three airline flights were GV led up in a row.
I can pull the crates out and fold the seats in, if needed, such as when laying out my new inflatable bed mattress. The crates can be stored in the front seats at night time.
In the old days, when custom vans where everywhere, the first addition that anyone could add to *their* van, was a spare tire rack, on the exterior of the rear doors…and all (ten of them) of my full size vans had one.
During normal driving, there’s nothing that says I can’t put the spare tire inside, sitting on top of the above mentioned gear. In an emergency stop, the rear seats would handle stopping the spare from flying forward. In an accident, however, should the van roll over, the spare could be deadly. Not an optimal choice.
So…where to put it…
How about getting a nice heavy duty roof rack, and mounting the spare up on top?
That…would work…with just a little fabrication on my part.
I started looking at van/SUV/etc aftermarket roof racks on Amazon and EBay, finding some really nice ones for $400 to $800 or more…sheesh!!! Out of my budget.
Then I located this one…
Note the current price… over the last six months, the price has fluctuated between $115 to $140….(and as of this update, it’s back up to $112…)
Last night, while going through a couple of hundred “saved for later” cart items, doing a bit of cleaning up, I came across this rack…and WHOA…holy crap!!!
$25.20
I double and triple checked it. Yep, I’m seeing it right.
So, I moved a couple things around, put it in the cart, and then viewed the cart, with this one item in it.
I had returned a set of oven top replacement burners (half an inch too big to fit) last week, and normally the refund goes back into the checking account…but this time, it was applied to a gift certificate/card…hence…free (hey, it works in my mind!!)…and Annie knew of my long term plans to fix the missing spare issue.
I hit the BUY button…and it’ll be on its way soon.
I was going to share this amazing price discount with y’all today, but it has gone back up…but it’s still nearly half off at $69. It’ll fit most vehicles, and has a center section of the basket you can leave off if you’ve got a smallish ride, who’s roof isn’t 64” long.
Yeah…so once the rack is mounted to the roof rails that lay flush against the roof until needed, how will the full size spare sit in the rack? Well, I could use a couple of ratchet straps, or maybe a threaded rod or two, using extra lug nuts to hold it in place. More on this in a sec…
When I was first shopping for a roof rack, I came across a couple of packages like this…all inclusive.
I’ve already got two of these roof mounted, zippered, weather proof cargo bags…one cheapie, and one very nice and slightly larger bag. I already have a cargo net, and a dozen or more ratchet straps…so I started shopping just for the rack itself, which is how I came across this “#1 best seller in cargo racks”.
To continue…The final plan is to attach the hardware to bolt in the spare, THEN go through the bottom of the cargo bag with the bolts holding the tire in place, and THEN zip up the bag. I’ll put a few other items inside with the tire…but then, I’m DONE!!!
Yay…full size spare, secured, locked cargo bag, and bonus front air deflector on the front to put a set of LED clearance lights, and two (or four) 6” off-road lights for traveling across the two lane county roads that make up the majority of pathways between cities and towns of Wyoming.
These would have come in handy in my 10 pm to 3am trip to Casper and back this past Saturday, in wide open country that contains vast amounts of huge, four legged mammals that can kill vehicles (my 1982 Dodge Maxivan in 2011, taken out by a spike buck mule deer on 8 Mile Road, just west of the Riverton, Wyoming international airport…at 65 mph, an hour after sunset)…
… or people (in 2015, on my way home from Nashville to Riverton, just past Muddy Gap after midnight, I stopped to help a pickup driver who had hit a bull elk, killing the elk…and his truck…but it was damn close to taking him out, too…and last Saturday I passed right by that spot…)
My current (aftermarket) brights light up the highway over a mile ahead, and I’ve added 7” rectangular LED fog/driving lights where factory round fog lights should have been…but you can never have enough light when critters (up to and including wild mustangs that roam all over Wyoming) are potentially scurrying across the pavement at the worst possible time, in pitch blackness.
Screw the rabbits, which are most of what I’ve seen…and I’ve only hit a half dozen or so…but THEY were trying to kill me FIRST…
Safety first…always. Like I said, timing was superb in this hardware being such a tremendous deals.
It never hurts to check regularly on the prices of future needs.
I’ve been VERY happy with the purchase, even though the van was high mileage. This was my only worry, but the maintenance records and were immaculately taken care of, and the van has been totally trouble free.
I’ve not had a single issue with ANYTHING on this van, and every single system still works perfectly. The previous owner was based in Casper, and my living in Wyoming for almost 23 years (except for April 2017 thru October 2019) allows me to fully understand the phrase “highway miles”…and this van is a pristine example of what that means.
The only shortcoming I’ve found was that there was no spare tire…and the factory donut spare resided underneath the floor, between the front seats. All four tires mounted right now are still in good condition, with about 60% tread left. I’ll be replacing the front tires in the next two months, and the rear two months after that.
The record snow fall wreaked havoc with my joy in the icy, slushy, snowy mix on all roads in town since New Year’s Day…but I still got around. New tires will help before the next blizzard occurs.
As for a spare, I can get a brand new rim at Walmart.com for $93. The tires are $85 and change each, again from Walmart.com. The nearest salvage yards are hours away in every direction…so new spare upgrade works.
Our local Walmart doesn’t have a Tire/Lube shop, and I’ll be ordering them online, with “Site to Store”, which I’ve done for two previous vehicles. I’ll be having them mounted at the local Goodyear shop. I’ll keep one of the front tires to mount on the new rim.
A full size spare is always optimal on any vehicle, but this planned upgrade won’t fit under the floor. I have to find another place for it.
Which brings me to alternatives ::
A) inside the van…or
B) outside the van
The DGC normally has stow and go seating, where the middle and back row seats fold completely into the floor, leaving a flat surface for hauling anything you need. There is no place to solidly mount a spare anywhere in the interior.
My van has a middle bench seat, that doesn’t fold into the floor, but it is removable. Where The stow and go seats would disappear into the floor, the floor has depressions for massive storage space. The floor in front of the bench seat has folding hinged panels that can be lifted up, giving a large amount of storage there…but not enough to fit a full size spare underneath.
Behind the rear row of seats, I’ve got two storage crates with tools, cold weather gear, big out bags, a twin size inflatable bed and hand powered air pump…purchased on Walmart clearance after a trip to DIA to pick up granddaughter turned into a two day survival test of sleeping on a VERY uncomfortable van floor) and such, after three airline flights were GV led up in a row.
I can pull the crates out and fold the seats in, if needed, such as when laying out my new inflatable bed mattress. The crates can be stored in the front seats at night time.
In the old days, when custom vans where everywhere, the first addition that anyone could add to *their* van, was a spare tire rack, on the exterior of the rear doors…and all (ten of them) of my full size vans had one.
During normal driving, there’s nothing that says I can’t put the spare tire inside, sitting on top of the above mentioned gear. In an emergency stop, the rear seats would handle stopping the spare from flying forward. In an accident, however, should the van roll over, the spare could be deadly. Not an optimal choice.
So…where to put it…
How about getting a nice heavy duty roof rack, and mounting the spare up on top?
That…would work…with just a little fabrication on my part.
I started looking at van/SUV/etc aftermarket roof racks on Amazon and EBay, finding some really nice ones for $400 to $800 or more…sheesh!!! Out of my budget.
Then I located this one…
Note the current price… over the last six months, the price has fluctuated between $115 to $140….(and as of this update, it’s back up to $112…)
Last night, while going through a couple of hundred “saved for later” cart items, doing a bit of cleaning up, I came across this rack…and WHOA…holy crap!!!
$25.20
I double and triple checked it. Yep, I’m seeing it right.
So, I moved a couple things around, put it in the cart, and then viewed the cart, with this one item in it.
I had returned a set of oven top replacement burners (half an inch too big to fit) last week, and normally the refund goes back into the checking account…but this time, it was applied to a gift certificate/card…hence…free (hey, it works in my mind!!)…and Annie knew of my long term plans to fix the missing spare issue.
I hit the BUY button…and it’ll be on its way soon.
I was going to share this amazing price discount with y’all today, but it has gone back up…but it’s still nearly half off at $69. It’ll fit most vehicles, and has a center section of the basket you can leave off if you’ve got a smallish ride, who’s roof isn’t 64” long.
Yeah…so once the rack is mounted to the roof rails that lay flush against the roof until needed, how will the full size spare sit in the rack? Well, I could use a couple of ratchet straps, or maybe a threaded rod or two, using extra lug nuts to hold it in place. More on this in a sec…
When I was first shopping for a roof rack, I came across a couple of packages like this…all inclusive.
I’ve already got two of these roof mounted, zippered, weather proof cargo bags…one cheapie, and one very nice and slightly larger bag. I already have a cargo net, and a dozen or more ratchet straps…so I started shopping just for the rack itself, which is how I came across this “#1 best seller in cargo racks”.
To continue…The final plan is to attach the hardware to bolt in the spare, THEN go through the bottom of the cargo bag with the bolts holding the tire in place, and THEN zip up the bag. I’ll put a few other items inside with the tire…but then, I’m DONE!!!
Yay…full size spare, secured, locked cargo bag, and bonus front air deflector on the front to put a set of LED clearance lights, and two (or four) 6” off-road lights for traveling across the two lane county roads that make up the majority of pathways between cities and towns of Wyoming.
These would have come in handy in my 10 pm to 3am trip to Casper and back this past Saturday, in wide open country that contains vast amounts of huge, four legged mammals that can kill vehicles (my 1982 Dodge Maxivan in 2011, taken out by a spike buck mule deer on 8 Mile Road, just west of the Riverton, Wyoming international airport…at 65 mph, an hour after sunset)…
… or people (in 2015, on my way home from Nashville to Riverton, just past Muddy Gap after midnight, I stopped to help a pickup driver who had hit a bull elk, killing the elk…and his truck…but it was damn close to taking him out, too…and last Saturday I passed right by that spot…)
My current (aftermarket) brights light up the highway over a mile ahead, and I’ve added 7” rectangular LED fog/driving lights where factory round fog lights should have been…but you can never have enough light when critters (up to and including wild mustangs that roam all over Wyoming) are potentially scurrying across the pavement at the worst possible time, in pitch blackness.
Screw the rabbits, which are most of what I’ve seen…and I’ve only hit a half dozen or so…but THEY were trying to kill me FIRST…
Safety first…always. Like I said, timing was superb in this hardware being such a tremendous deals.
It never hurts to check regularly on the prices of future needs.
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