Bought a 96 Outback couple of months back and want to know if thay came with a full size spare or the funky little 21 inch diameter donut that came with ours?? Thanks, Jeff

they came with the funky, space / cost saving spare.

 

the spare tire storage area will handle a full size spare (you may have to remove the tray, i don't know.) but you don't want to drive very far on mis-matched tires, full size or factory spare. you can damage the AWD part of the trans.

 

your tires all need to be with in 1/4 inch in circumference. this means you have to buy all 4 as a set and rotate them regularly .

If nothing else rotate in order to prevent the rims from being entirely rusted onto the hub and to keep the lugnuts from being completely rusted onto the hub bolts. Can't tell you how many times I've had to pull out the breaker bar or blow torch in order to fix a simple flat.

Thanks for replies. Is there a front wheel drive only function when using the donut spare? Jeff

manual trans, no. they have a viscous coupling in the rear of the trans which does the work of sending power to the rear. it is purely mechanical. it is the exact same design as the viscous limited slip rear diff.

 

for the auto trans the answer is yes. there is a fuse holder under the hood, passenger side, near the fire wall in the corner marked FWD. put any size fuse in there and your car will be FWD only. (and before you ask, no it will not save you gas to run in FWD only.) with the fuse in you will have a red FWD lite on the instrument cluster and odd ball size tire will not cause problems.

 

the fuse holder was not designed to run for long periods of time with the fuse in. it was designed for diagnostic / spare tire driving . but some folks have run for a very long time with the fuse in. long term it could wear out the duty c solenoid early. then you would have ''torque bind'' all the time.