How many wheels/tires do you think you could fit in a 2009 Ford Flex given these limitations:
-No tire may be higher than the headrests.
-Must be room for two persons.
-Must be room for two carry-on bags, a 3 1/2 ton floor jack and a few doze cones.
-Must be stable for > 1,000 miles.
Follow the jump for the answer. (And some pictures!)
So, how many tires did you think would fit?
Did I hear someone say 12? Correct!
See, the trouble is that the tires we needed to haul were too wide to sit two across in the rear cargo area. It was possible (as seen above) to do so over the rear seats, but doing so required them to sit on top of the fridge hump.
The rear had to be arranged like this: three stacked vertically, two horizontal and one sort of crooked using the jack for stability. There's six. There is not enough depth left in front of the stacked tires to place more vertically or horizontally.
Second row seats went like this: two stacked on each seat, one in each footwell. There's another six.
And here's the D-side
The Flex and I did a hair over 1,000 miles like this without breaking a sweat or my neck with a flying tire. A minivan would've been better, but I wouldn't have been as happy.
Mike Magrath, Vehicle Testing Assistant @ 25,240 miles
firelicked says:
04:29 PM, 06/ 3/09
Ummm... what type of prototype/moon tires are those? What's with the tread patterns? lol
dragonflight says:
04:42 PM, 06/ 3/09
Did you actually try to blur those treads? A. that's pretty suspicious and B. You probably should have blurred the first pic much more...
g8gtnorth says:
04:51 PM, 06/ 3/09
Fantastic!!!
Re-affirming why you are my favourite editor.
the_big_al says:
04:52 PM, 06/ 3/09
so did you like the overwhelming smell of new rubber??
DCuerpoJr says:
04:52 PM, 06/ 3/09
Wow, that's impressive.
DCuerpoJr says:
05:00 PM, 06/ 3/09
Wow, that's impressive.
boxermike says:
05:00 PM, 06/ 3/09
"By dragonflight on June 3, 2009 4:42 PM
Did you actually try to blur those treads? A. that's pretty suspicious and B. You probably should have blurred the first pic much more..."
If my blurring job wasn't up to snuff, why not take a guess at what tires those are in the first pic. Betcha don't get 'em. ;)
-mm
firstwagon says:
05:39 PM, 06/ 3/09
Too bad you don't still have the Grand Caravan.
I'll bet it would hold all those tires without even folding the centre row seats.
It may have it's faults but it makes crossovers look cramped.
phennighausen says:
07:05 PM, 06/ 3/09
that's a lot of tires!
BTW you guys are missing the safety reflector on the driver's side rear door there.
drmillerM3 says:
07:12 AM, 06/ 4/09
Contisports and some crazy treads.
dougtheeng says:
08:09 AM, 06/ 4/09
Why hide the treads? Prototypes or something?
Mad_Science says:
10:22 AM, 06/ 4/09
Former tire-monkey to tell you that you should've laced the tires.
You could've fit them 2-wide and 2-high and still been below the headrests. Not sure if you would've been able to get more than 3 "blocks" of 4 in, though.
greenpony says:
12:55 PM, 06/ 4/09
Photochopping out some sort of labels on the tires?