10 days before Christmas, I got a puncture, nearside front. Tyre was completely flat! Didn't discover this until I got back home from Norwich having driven on the A47 dual carriageway! Car felt fine, except for what I considered to be bad cornering on my part on a roundabout, and a slight pull to the left on a stretch of road in the city. I went to the boot for the spare wheel and found the empty space you see in the photo on the left, with the compressor and 'glue' you see on the right (the glue in plastic bag as it's been used and now leaks!).
It took around 15mins to inflate the tyre, glue pot attached to compressor as given in instructions in handbook. I then contacted Kwikfit who told me they would have to fit a new tyre, as mine was now rendered useless by the glue, so couldn't be repaired.
2 days later, would you believe, I got a 2nd puncture, this time nearside rear! This has allowed me to trace the location to a road in my village, where they only recently 'massacred' the hedges and left all the cuttings on the road. With the 2nd puncture I had no 'repair' glue left, it's a one-time only pot, so this time I just pumped the tyre up with the compressor. Success, I got the tyre up to pressure in less than 5 minutes, and it stayed up. I drove the 10 miles to Kwikfit but this tyre couldn't be repaired as the damage was so extensive! I had only driven to the church the day before, down the road where the hedges had been cut. I was told at Kwikfit that it looked like a piece of wood had gone into the tyre, leaving a big hole and a long slit, so I was lucky it had only lost about a third of its pressure by the time I got to Kwikfit.
So, since this episode, I have wondered what on earth I would do if I got a puncture somewhere where there's no phone signal, and the tyre won't inflate? In Norfolk we have a lot of mobile signal dead spots. No spare wheel and no phone signal to call out the breakdown, nightmare!
My car is leased though ADINDI so I have told them about this. Having at least a space-saver spare wheel is something I will insist on for my next car! However, according to this blog post from TyreBlog, more new cars may soon be provided without a spare wheel! Petition anyone?