Sorry, I needed to vent. What a joke of a spare tire. The car is the size of a tank and they couldn't fit a full size spare???

be happy the spare on your tire isnt located IN the cabin like in the ML55s, talk about little to no space

On most cars it's crap. Anyway, what's the problem? You have lifetime roadside maintenance - just call them and thy'll take care of it for you until you get it fixed. You will have the bad tire repaired/replaced anyway, so why would the company give you a full size spare???

On another note, the E-Class (at least my MY01) has a full size spare. But, here's the trick: the rim with the full size spare can only be used for a certain number of miles. So I ask - will the darn thing self destruct after the spec'd miles???