Stand alone spare tire Carrier on an E350, what are people using?

[melittle]

I'm deep in the rabbit hole of spare tire carrier options. Not keen on spending $3k on a new bumper with integrated tire carrier. I've whittled down the options to either a hitch mount (Wilco or Rig'd) or the Aluminess. I like the concept of the Aluminess since it is semi-permanent and out of the way. Not crazy about some of the bad things I've heard about rattling and cracking (but of course there are always naysayers for any possible solution).
I am running 35" tires, does anyone know what the maximum size is before the tire starts to inhibit opening of the passenger side door?
Any experience/opinions on Aluminess or any of the hitch-mount solutions are much appreciated.

 

[Fork-N-Road]

From memory, I needed to swing my 35" spare out in order to be able to open the passenger side door.

I purchased a brand new Aluminess tire carrier a few years ago, but I was never happy with it. It would loosen itself and rattle after fewer and fewer miles. I have read numerous threads on how people have been able to make them work more dependably, but I didn't want to worry about it, and sold mine.

I have looked at the Wilco, but I will likely bite the bullet on a non Aluminess full rear bumper sometime soon.

 

[shenrie]

I have a 35” tire on my aluminess carrier and don’t need to swing the tire to access the passenger door, but I made my own adapter plate too. When I made the new adapter plate I was doing so because I went from 8x165 to the 8x170 bolt pattern on the van. At the same time I designed the adapter plate so the wheel was resting more on the bumper than hanging on the carrier as I had seen to many stories of peoples spares breaking off. I also ain’t getting any younger and the 9.5 wheel and 35” tire was hard to get back onto the carrier. Now I just rest it on the bumper then align the lug studs. Plus it gains me more view out the back window. Not sure why they don’t come that way originally. Probably see less of people’s spares breaking off.

 

[RVflyfish]

Shenrie I could never understand why they don't come that way either! Is that a factory step bumper?

 

[shenrie]

Yep, stocker step bumper.

I know their design is a catch all where most spares can bolt on and go, but it wouldn’t be hard to predrill the adapter plates for the more popular sized tires so that the burden of the weight was more on the bumper than the tire carrier.

there’s a good thread on the smb forum about the failure of one gents carrier. Shows the repair he had done, a few pix of his and other failed carriers, and suggestions on how to make them stronger after the fact.

one thing I will say though, sounds like aluminess takes care of their customers. Iirc they saw that thread and reached out to him about it. Imho, you don’t hear about a company reaching out to an end user first to offer assistance. Usually the other way around and this isn’t the first I’ve heard of them fixing or replacing items for customers. That says a lot about a company. Would be nice to see more companies follow their lead.

 

[sakurama]

Blocking the rear tail lights was the reason I didn't go with the Aluminess one. I'm not as concerned about the rear windows so I made my rack to keep the tire up high and preserve the tail lights. I'm still happy with my design even though the spare is a hassle to get down. I haven't had to swap it on a flat yet and the shop deals with it when I do rotations. This is 35" and I just swapped to 37's and had to remake the rack for the door to clear but it's still within the space of the door.

That's with the 37's.

My build thread shows the process for building the rack.

Gregor

 

[geoffff]

I'm one of the people with a rattly shaky Aluminess standalone rear tire carrier. I've nursed mine along over the years, but have never been really happy with it.

http://octopup.org/sportsmobile/reartire

 

[Trail Talk]

Used the Wilco Hitchgate Solo on our SUV, very robust and rattle free. Carried a Rotopax fuel pack as well, could have mounted a Hilift jack or traction mats. Has a secondary 2” receiver so you don’t lose that functionality.