For those of you running without a spare tire, you may have noticed that the plywood in the trunk has zero support anymore, and anything more than 5lbs causes the trunk floor to sink in - right now I'm using an upside-down plastic bin to act as support for the floor - anyone else got a better solution to this? Some kind of cork/Styrofoam box, anything of that nature...?

 

I still run my spare but understand what you are noting

If you wanted to get serious you could do the following:

Line the wheel cavity w/a poly liner

Fill in the cavity w/a spray foam & make a mold of the cavity (you will need a large bottle of the polyurethane foam)

Take out the foam after it cures & remove the poly liner

W/a wood saw cut it flat & re-install

 

that's real serious. I was thinking like a Styrofoam cube and I cut out the bottom for the spare tire hump lol

 

I took out the board so I just have carpet hanging down, works fine with bonus trunk space. Helps prevent things rolling around too, usually my toolkit bag is in that pit.

 

Glad you made this thread.

I did something a bit stronger than most.

I used 4 screws to secure a long rectangular piece of wood to the bottom of the weak "plywood" piece to give it rigidity across the width of the trunk.

To keep it from moving around, I attached heavy duty velcro bits to the bottom of the wood and used an existing plastic screw hole located on the passenger side of our cars to place a single long bolt for further support.

Works like a charm and have been using it for 3 years without issues.


Another solution is to glue together bits of styrofoam to fill the void of the spare tire, but that's not solid enough for me and I don't mind the extra weight of the wood board.

-pal215

 

^ that's hardcore. I just want something to replace the donut but be ten times lighter

 

I took a piece of plywood, stenciled around the shape of the carpet and cut. Once I got the shape I needed, I layed it down flat on the trunk bed. Turned out great. No moving at all

 

how much weight can that support?

 

A peice of 1/2" plywood would support plenty weight in the trunk.

 

And probably weigh about the same as the spare.

 

Not even close. But if it did, its easier to remove since it's not bolted down.

 

I've always just left the carpeted piece out of the trunk in cars where I remove the spare but still occasionally haul something somewhat heavy in the trunk. I just put whatever I needed where the spare tire used to go.

 

bought a 10x10x10 cube of Styrofoam - will cut off about 4" from the height of it, make a divot in the bottom for the hump and see how it works. 10x10 area should be enough to make a nice surface for the trunk mat to rest on

 

That should work pretty well as long as you're not hauling bodies around on a regular basis. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

-pal215

 

I just used the pallet that came underneath my harbor freight tool box. So, just visualize a pallet, just small enough to fit in the spare tire area, seems to work pretty well.