Recently, I had the brilliant idea to bring home a bale of straw in the trunk of the car (yeah, I know, it’s not like we don’t own a truck). It made a bigger mess than I anticipated. Needless to say, I had to vacuum the trunk. While doing so, I noticed that we did not have a spare tire. At first I thought it was because we bought our vehicle used, but then I did some research and found out that Kia does not provide a spare tire as standard equipment for the Optima.
Apparently eliminating the spare tire is a new thing that car manufacturers are doing to save money and to get (very slightly) better gas mileage ratings. They are also using the excuse that today’s tires are better and that tire pressure monitoring has cut down on the number of flats people are getting. Whatever. Not one to take a chance, I ordered a spare tire last week and it is now snugly positioned in the trunk.