Date:         Mon, 6 Mar 2000 12:13:32 -0500
Reply-To:     John Anderson <jander14@WVU.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         John Anderson <jander14@WVU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Mercedes wheels
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.5.32.20000306074101.00ad4400@po-2.openmarket.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>
>
> 1.) has machined centers out of cast aluminum wheels
>     (cast aluminum is very fragile)
> 2.) suspension modified by cutting notches to allow the wheel to fit
>     (who knows what this will do over the life of the vehicle)
> 3.) significantly less track than even the stock wheels
>     (making for worse handling)


Oh this is ludicrous already, although I questioned the Audi wheel fitment
early on, some REAL world points.

Machining a little aluminum from the center of an Audi or Mercedes wheel
will do nothing to the strength, I'm a mechanical engineer, take my word on
it, I'd stake my life (personally) on it.  Either are big tough wheels, the
Mercedes
as mentioned is forged even, but even the early Audi Turbo wheels are meant to
carry a big hefty car around.

Suspension mods are indeed foolish, I give one there.  I'd never carve any
part of the front spindle personally unless it is obvious that it is a non
load
bearing area, heavy duty as it is.  But most people don't seem to need to do
this if you run what a trivial 5mm spacer I think (I haven't been following
this
time round really.)

The last point is ridiculous as well, change in TRACK, come on already, you
can see more changes with mere tires, I run 27x8.5's like a number of others
on the list and I don't get anything I'm concerned about, admittedly on the
same
center, but wildly more contact area and distibuted differently.  Van handles
better than ever before IMHO.

You want real problems folks, put a set of BMW 320 wheels on a A1 chassis
VW, 20mm or better offset change, people still did it all the time (ate
bearings.)
But for a Vanagon, the bearings, spindles, everything are monstrous at most
you'd need to look carefully at repacking the bearings every 50k or so.  I ran
wider
wheels on my Corrado and changed the offset intentionally about 10mm to keep
the tires under the fenders properly, as long as it fits, and nothing rubs, no
reason to worry about any of this.  As has already been mentioned the damn
VW alloy and steel wheels are pretty different offsets themselves, most of
these
replacements are somewhere in between.  I have a number of friends that have
run 15" mercedes alloys for tens maybe hundreds of thousands of miles.

If it fits, and you don't carve up suspension, run it if you want.  Think as
always
though why you want to bother, the 27x8.5R14 is a nice fit on stock alloys or
steels already, and is already heavy and hard to spin up.  If you think it
is a
cosmetic improvement to put Mercedes alloys on a Van, well ...

John
jander14@wvu.edu