With or Without Rear Tire Cover?

Tire covers? Are you referring to the hub cap or an actual cover for tire storage?

Cover for the rear tire that mounts on the rear hatch.

I'd go with a cover even if it makes the rear look disproportionate, more for protection from the elements than anything. Why submit the tire to sun, rain and snow which harden the rubber faster?

Econobox said:

I'd go with a cover even if it makes the rear look disproportionate, more for protection from the elements than anything. Why submit the tire to sun, rain and snow which harden the rubber faster?

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Valid point but overall you should always try to keep your car out of the sun because it have a similar impact on the paint, rubber seals, etc. Unless you're leasing this and don't care much about what will happen 5-6+ years down the road.

Storing the car indoors is not always an option for me, not when the garage only fits one car and there's three in the waiting line. The paint will take some damage over time, but it's still nice to reduce what wear you can on soft parts like tires.

In that case you just have to put in a lot of extra car and attention to what's happening. Someone I know in a similar situation gets their car waxed every month and washes it about every 3-4 days. That alone will keep the paint alive, there's more you can do but that's as basic as it gets.

I'm not one to wax vehicles and most of the time it's stored in a garage. But this is about the spare tires mounted on the back. A cover is all you need on top of checking the tire pressure now and then.

Rear Door Mounted Spare Tire?

You can hash over the merits of putting a Cover over the Rear Door Mounted Spare Tire but more importantly, why get it at all? Very few Vehicle offer this design anymore. Why? Simple! Previous Vehicles with this design cause major damage when the Rear Spare Tire comes in contact with another Vehicle or fixed object. Even the slightest touch causes thousands of dollars damage to rear hatch door. Honda CR-V, Rave 4, an a host of other CUV`s have ditched this concept years ago. Live with the Emergency Tire Inflator Kit or go to a Salvage Yard, buy a used compatiible Spare Donut Tire, get a Cover to fit it on Amazon an throw it into the rear of Vehicle for long trips. Forget the Jack Assembly. Tire failure? Call Ford Roadside Service or AAA to mount the Tire, simple!

I would go for the covered wheel. First of all, it looks better IMO. If you just don't like how the cover looks, buy another one from your dealer or online (eBay, Amazon have a lot of them). The second thing is weather protection. Weather can play a bad game with you causing cracks and weakening the rubber. Tires are pretty expensive these days, so the cover can save you a few hundreds of dollars for the new wheel.

Rear Hatch Mounted Spare Tire?

Just look at the looks of this CUV with or without the ugly Rear Mounted Spare Tire located on the Hatch Door. What looks better, Tire or (No Tire)? The Rear Mounted Spare Tire looks ugly, period! With or without Cover. Unless you plan on adding "Rhino Bars" to the Grill, Head & Tail Lights, it looks like Crap, IMO.

Actually prefer the rear mounted tire simply because it'll free up cargo space it would have otherwise occupied. And not really bad looking so long as you get a nice hard plastic body colored cover.

Rear Door Mounted Spare Tire = expensive trouble.

Ask anyone who has (previously) owned any Vehicle with a Read Door Mounted Spare Tire an find out the extreme cost of repairs when, not (if) it makes contact with anything, Vehicle, or any fixed object. No cheap easy fix with the Dent Doctor if the Paint is still not ruined. The Tire assures major damage to entire rear door. Unless you going to attempt to use this Mini-CUV Off the Road, forgetaboutit.:crying:

To be honest that's more of your own negligence than anything else. Maybe for someone having this setup for the first time might require some time to adjust but overall if you're careful enough there wont be an issue. The pros far outweigh the cons. Plus how often do you need to access the rear cargo area?

Rear Door Mounted Spare Tire = expensive trouble.

workingclasshero said:

To be honest that's more of your own negligence than anything else. Maybe for someone having this setup for the first time might require some time to adjust but overall if you're careful enough there wont be an issue. The pros far outweigh the cons. Plus how often do you need to access the rear cargo area?

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No matter whether you attribute the costly damage to negligence or simple judgement error of room when backing up, when the Bumper offers (zero) Protection an your Rear Mounted Tire accentually becomes your Bumper, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that just a minor "tap" is going to cost Thousands of dollars in the repair.

Well then that begs the question of what are the odds you'll end up in this situation?
Having worked in the auto industry in body shops, I've seen maybe 1-2 in all my years.
If you want to be extra safe, the load up on back-up tech

I wish our Ecosports had rear mounted tires that we could choose to cover or not cover. In the USA, spare tires are only offered as an option on the lowest end version. Where we live we see an average on 1-2 flat tires a year between all of our vehicles. This isn't a good place not to have a spare tire. I wouldn't count on that spray stuff that is supposed to temporarily fix a leak.

Go with the cover. Looks better to me.