15851-76 --- Vertical Tongue Mounted Spare Tire Carrier - Bolt On

While the mount will fit an 8x6.5 bolt pattern wheel as advertised, it can only fit a tire that is about 26" tall. Typically 8x6.5 bolt patterns are a 16" wheel with a 235/80/16 tire that measures over 30 inches tall or a 235/85/16 that measures 32 inches tall. So keep that in mind when ordering. If your tires are over 26 inches tall, either find another solution, or be prepared to modify the carrier. In my option its false advertising to call this a spare TIRE carrier for 8x6.5 pattern wheels. You could call it a spare WHEEL carrier for that size, but who cares a spare wheel with out the tire? I ended up modifying the carrier by cutting it in half and welding in some plate to make it taller. It is a pretty solid mount. I also mounted it to a 2x6 tongue with longer 8 inch carriage bolts.

I noted in my previous review that one of the mounting bolts was too short. I contacted Croft and got a positive response within 24 hours offering to work with the manufacturer to fix the problem. I'm very happy about this - it's rare to get such quick and positive service from many companies. This is a really good sign for working with Croft, and I'll definitely keep them in mind for future trailer part needs. Also, I'm happy to note that Demco (the manufacturer) ALSO responded very quickly and is shipping me a replacement bolt at no charge. So TWO top-not customer services in 24 hours! Yay!

This is a seriously robust bit of gear. I decided against cheaper models after reading how they tended to fail at the welds, but mainly because I wanted a mount that wasn't cantilevered away from my RV's rear bumper. Despite its really solid design, this mount is about half the weight of my former spare carrier which was integrated with the fold-down rear cargo carrier, so this will save me gas money in the long run, offsetting some of the increased cost. The 3-1/2-inch spacing between the front and rear bracket bolts meant the bolts wouldn't fit around the 4-inch square tube that makes up my RV rear bumper (like many such RV bumpers). I knew that when I purchased it, so this isn't a complaint, really. My fix was to drill a pair of holes in my RV bumper just inside the wall of the square tube, so that the bolts on the front (towards the tow vehicle) were outside the tube and the bolts at the back were just inside the tube. I did not want to modify this mount, and the steel of the bumper was super thin so it was easy to drill. I painted the holes to avoid rust. Because my RV sewer tubes are less than half the width of the rear bumper, having internal bolts won't adversely affect its use. Now that it's mounted, it's ridiculously solid; no bounce at all, and I won't hesitate to stand atop the tire to help get my RV cover off. The only issue I had was that one of the four bracket bolts was 1/2-inch shorter than it needed to be; I've contacted the manufacturer for a replacement bolt. For now, I bought an inferior and too-long temporary bolt at the hardware store. One other thing: many people ask if this will fit a 16" radius wheel. My tire is an R15 and there was only about 1/2 of clearance with the tire mounted as high as mechanically possible. And even that required using diagonal holes on my 6-lug tire, not opposite holes. On a five-hole tire, there's no option but to use adjacent holes, but on a six-hole tire you do have the option. I would have very much preferred to use opposite holes, so it was a symmetrical mount, but that wasn't possible with this setup. So I'm not sure if this mount really would fit an R16 tire - maybe just barely on a 6-hole tire. If it did, the tire might be pressed pretty hard against the bottom of the mount, and having a tire cover would be tricky.

I can't really review this product as FedEx has lost the shipment and refered me back to Croft. They said they would see what they could do but it's been a few days and I haven't heard anything back

So far so good. Solid, well built, and quite honestly- the only one of its kind short of a diy

Not a lot of options for bolt-on forward-mount tire carriers, but fortunately this one delivers. Welds are excellent, included hardware is top notch. Do note lug nuts are not included.