When I was buying snow tires from Tirerack.com I got the steel rims from them and if memory serves, the wheels were something like $30 each. That's cheap enough.

Actually, the idea of carrying one of the off-season tires (snows in the summer and all-season in the winter) is a good one. I'll have to see if mine fits the spare tire well.

Also, on the subject of checking the spare pressure often. I am not a psychiatrist, nor do I play one on TV, but I think if access to the spare tire valve were better than what it is, more spares would be properly inflated. I wonder if there is a product out there that extends the tire valve via a flexible hose to about a foot or two. That way, you could just have the valve available for your tire pressure gauge all the time without having to take the kids' bikes, strollers, case of oil and groceries out to check the spare tire pressure. Let me know if anyone knows of such a hose. It just needs to have a male shrader valve on one end and the female on the other and be lfexible and tough enough to survive the trunk environment.


Cheers!
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Vladimir. '98 S70 base, 5-speed manual (his), '91 240 sedan automatic (hers).

Try a local Discount Tire, or www.tires.com. They may not have the same wheel as your current ones, but they'll have the size. They may have to order it. I got mine for about $60-USD with a $30-USD tire. I had the same problem, got stuck one day and blew a tire on the freeway. Driving home on the spare doughnut was a nightmare, couldn't go over 50mph for my life. What made it worse was it was two days after I had my tires rotated, spun, balanced and the dealership was "supposed" to check my air pressure in all my tires (including the spare), which I requested. Didn't find out the spare was severely underinflated until I pulled it out the trunk. They got a mouthfull the next morning. Always check you spare tire pressure often.

If you cannot find a used spare wheel, go to any GOOD tire shop, they can order one for you.

They can probably come up with a good used take-off to mount on it.

I reccomend that you get a tire that is a little bit narrower than standard but has the load carrying capacity you need.

Personally, I carry one of my snow tires.
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3 8s & 2 7s 740,000 miles total