Spare Wheel Carrier (I Have Looked For Answers!)

Nigel-ph · April 27, 2019

There are plenty of posts about mk1/2 spare wheel carrier issues but none covering my particular quandary. The winch on my 05 model is obviously faulty. It unwinds enough to release the grip on the spare wheel then just clicks. There is an excellent post (many thanks) describing a metal fork that gets stuck about where my mechanism starts clicking but with the wheel in the way I can’t see where it is or get at it to release it.

If I can get the winch off i’m sure I can fix it, so is there any way to remove the wheel without destroying the white nylon plug that holds the wheel on the wire?

BrianH · April 29, 2019

The way it should work is to push the wheel up off the plug and then drop the plug through the centre of the wheel. You might find a trolley jack under the wheel to support it might help to remove it (mine was stuck in place and had to be prised out when I removed it).

Alternatively since the wheel will move about, get underneath and use a long extension bar to get a socket on to the bolts (13mm I think from memory, and only two of them) and just undo the whole winch mechanism with the wheel still attached.

The general fix for the mk2 is to find one from a mk1 and fit that instead, as the internal components are better (metal gears rather than plastic I think).

Ginettamad · May 22, 2019