Buick Rendevous Spare Tire and Jack

rtk

The spare is under the rear of the auto. It goes up and down on a hand crank cable like other GM vans. BUT, on the Rendevous, brilliant automotive engineers put a strut and frame piece right across where the tire goes so that the tire cannot be pulled directly up but must be pulled rearward to avoid the strut and frame while cranking the cable up. WELL, brilliant auto engineers!! So how do you get the spare back in. Two grown strong men laying on the ground pushing the spare up and into it's little keyhole.

The jack is another story. It's TOO BIG to get in and out of the right rear inside panel behind which it hides.

GM must be thinking the Buick owners never get flats or change their own tires. Do something about this GM. Also fire the engineers who designed this mess.

barb9

I had to use my spare on an interstate last summer.
A little frustrating at first but then it made sense.
Upon lowering tire, I found it didn't come down all the way, so I raised it back up and re-lowered it and that was it. As for replacing the tire, I too had a guy from the tire shop on his back trying to get it back in. He said it was done, and when I looked it was still hanging out (at the cross piece). So I lowered the tire only enough to have some movement with it, angled the tire up and in the cross piece and winched up the remaining cable. Note: do not have the cable fully extended with replacing the tire in the slot, take up about half the slack.
The tireguy at the shop was shock when it only took me with one hand and one knee to replace the tire in its correct position.
As for the jack, make sure it is fully retracted before placing in the wheel well. It is a tight fit buy I found no problem with it.

dan195

The Spare tire on the 02 rendexvous is stuck . It will not lower down. I have loosed the cable and sprayed lubricant from underneath. The bracket under the tire does rotate about 90 degrees but the tire does not budge. I have started banging on the tire with a hammer to loosen the thing.
What should I try next.? A bigger Hammer?

dan195

The lights for the switches on the steering wheel are out. In additon, one of the ones on the dash is out too. What is the best way to replace these switches? Should I try prying these out with a screw driver?

Thanks

adavidf03

Same thing on my 05. The spare tire winch had bound up the cable internally. The winch is a one piece unit that is bolted on from underneath (three bolts). I ended up cutting the "T" bracket off to release the spare tire (a real pain in the a**). In hindsight, I may have been able to reach the winch mounting bolts by coming up thru the spare tire itself with a socket extension. A replacement winch cost $135 from GM. Tried to find a used one in the junk yards; no luck.

dan195

I wound up blow touching the T bracket off. I also tried the junk yard but gave up.
I am now carring the spare tire in the back seat. My rendezvous came with a hook that is suppose to hook on to the "D hook on the back of the rear seat . This is supposed to hold down the spare tire . I found that the hook is about 6 " to long . It works but it hands too far and snags anything else that you have in the back .. I wound up buying a new hook from the hardware store that is shorter .

trickeyphoto

You guys should have read the whole section in your manual, it is ridiculous, but in order to get the tire to lower, you have to use the jack to jack it back into place in order to fully release the cable. I tried all the banging and was about to cut the cable, then I read the rest of the ridiculous instructions. Haven't tried putting it back yet, that looks like a whole new nightmare.

rangar

tried all of this. plus hammer, and wd40. still will not come off looking for ideas how to get the tire off without torching.