I just lost 87lbs!!!
 

Took 10 minutes to clean out my car and get rid of the spare tire. Weighed it all and it totaled 87lbs!! Not much of a dent in a car with a curb weight of 3,300lbs but, every little bit helps I guess.

DoubleJ -

Did everything you took out come with the car?

87 / 3348 curb weight = 0.025 => 2.5% weight loss

CarloSW2

No, only the spare donut tire and the jack came with the car. The rest was garbage, crap, and a few boxes of stuff from when we moved a short time ago that never got unpacked from the car. Basically, now I'm back down to curb weight

Every little bit helps. I know that I often carry a lot of stuff in the car that I don't need to be hauling around constantly.

I personally don't like the idea of removing the jack/spare though, but that's only b/c I like to be prepared just in case.

I only travel 8 miles away from the house in this vehicle

well, in that case it's not a bad idea.

lol i got a flat about 5 miles away from my house comming home from school one day...i had it switched with the spare in a matter of 10 minutes (after i moved a buncha crap to get my jack out...) otherwise i would have had to call my mom or someone to either bring me the spare or pick me up and take me back...

just leave it in there. its better safe than sorry unless you know someoen who is always going to be available that knows how to get to your tire and jack(in your garage, apartment etc) so when a 5-10 minute job would now take half hour or longer depending on traffic, bugging other people, wasted gas by them or you having to get your doughnut etc...

lol its not really worth not having it so you save like a nickel per fill up....

Removing the spare tire and jack is stupid.

What if there is no one who can come and get you? That would be a lot of fun.

lol or you forget your cell/ no service/dead battery...could be a long fun walk to a house or to flag down a driver....

Does everything have to degenerate into some kind of beat-down? Make sure and go hammer on the new guy with the LS400... Sigh.

I don't care. I have no problems with all of the things mentioned above. If for some 0.0000001% chance my wife is not at home during my 8 mile commute to the park and ride or my 8 mile trip home, I'll walk. If you can't walk 8 miles if you have to, you really should get out a bit more.

As far as the flat tire thing, it's not the availability of help but the time factor. I can get a tire changed by the time help can arrive.

NOTE: Any time you remove something, make sure it's not technically considered a safety feature.

One thing that I have been working on for way too long is removing that bulky hitch. It had one bolt that I couldn't remove because my socket wrench was too shallow. Then the sprinklers came on and I had to move, so I decided to finish the job today. I'll get a pic, then stow the stupid hitch in the garage.

m

So I pulled my spare, and then stupidly coasted down the shoulder of the road and picked up a bolt. 25 miles from home. Luckily my son got my spare out of the garage and rescued me.

A week later in my son's car, I swerved to miss a piece of wood in the road and.... missed... the swerve that is, not the wood. Another screw, this time a spare in the trunk.

I figure I could safely remove my spare at this point..... three times ???? No way.... except for the fact that I have pushed my tire pressures up into the high 50 lb range. I think I will keep the spare in.....

Heck, I am finding that fuel managment is giving me a much bigger bang for the buck that weight reduction anyway... I got my lean burning ECU and O2 running and just did a 62 mpg tank.... easily 5% more than before... 10% maybe. An aftermarket fuel mapping device is something I would recommend at this point, at least if you do a lot of highway driving.