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All this talk of paint colours and oem wheels has got me wondering. What spare wheel is best from an enthusiast point of view? Of course if you plumped for the alpinas you will want a matching spare, I always have. But even my nearly new 81 320 came with a steel wheel as a spare with BBS basket weaves as standard. There is no way for me to get a matching deepdish spare for my set so I have a steel one. Question is, do I paint it black as factory or body coloured? Or is the humble spare not so important to you and a space saver type is fine so you can use the spare wheel well for a subwoofer? Just curious what we all think when it comes to those little finishing touches.

I found an Alpina Rep in Germany 7x15 as spare and I dropped tyre size from 205/50/15 to 195/50/15 in same spec tyre to help floor lie flush on top of full wheel well.

then got an E36 jack and wheel spanner to finish off- they lock down in original location

Also got a wheel stay from somewhere

TopCat wrote:I found an Alpina Rep in Germany 7x15 as spare and I dropped tyre size from 205/50/15 to 195/50/15 in same spec tyre to help floor lie flush on top of full wheel well.

I was wondering, I have a brand new 7x15 Alpina in the trunk and fitted a 205 after following rumours: if you need to fit the spare at the back and if the circumference is different, it may be too much work for your LSD and it may break. That's why I fitted the 205 on the spare (together with a 7J wheel trying to stay as close to used spec as possible) and with some extended thread the floor card went in as should and the height difference isn't much.

I think that having a tyre mismatch would be a problem on the back without an LSD?
Anyway difftot is less than 2%:
http://www.alloywheels.com/Tyre_Calculator

What about a space saver?
With 15" wheels -the 13" spare wont be useable ,
Am i right in thinking mx5 space saver would fit??