Date:         Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:26:35 -0400
Reply-To:     "Fitz-Randolph, Douglas" <Doug@BEACONMARKETING.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Fitz-Randolph, Douglas" <Doug@BEACONMARKETING.NET>
Subject:      Oh no not tires, Agilis, etc.
Content-Type: text/plain

Frank Wrote:
<<It's Michelin Agilis.  Do not even think about them.  They are nothing
but trouble.  See all the posts in the archives under Michelin Agilis.>>

I'd respectfully like to offer that "they are nothing but trouble" is
inaccurate. Some people have had bad things to say about them, others
have had great things to say about them - as has been the case with
almost every other tire ever discussed on this list. I wouldn't take
ANY tire advice from this list as gospel, because no one has driven
enough different tires on their vans to make any truly valid
claims about one model being better or worse than another.

(For the spec page on the Agilis, go to this nearly-impossible-to-find
address: http://www.michelin.com/us/eng/news/agilis/3.htm )

I wouldn't have had good things to say about my Goodyear Wrangler HT's
when I first got them last fall, but now they seem just fine. "What
you are used to" plays a huge, completely subjective part in anyone's
evaluation of a tire, and not taking that into account when reading
advice is a mistake. Buy a tire that has a load rating suitable for the
Vanagon with a tread pattern that suits the sort of driving you do
that is made by a reputable manufacturer and installed by a competent
tire shop and you'll be just fine with whatever you get. Please realize,
of course, that this is just my personal opinion.

And I just have to add this... PLY RATING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE
ACTUAL NUMBER OF PLIES IN A TIRE! A six-ply or a ten-ply tire probably
has only 2 physical plies - but these plies are equivalent in strength
to the archaic standard of measuring a tire's strength by the number
of cotton plies used in the casing. If you see any reference to plies on
a modern tire, it is only a "ply rating". Most tires don't even carry
a ply rating - they will have a "load index" and likely a "load range".
An example of a tire that carries all three ratings would be my Nokian
snow tires, which have a ply-rating of 8, a load index of 108 and a
load range of D. And they have only 2 physical tread & sidewall plies...

> Doug Fitz-Randolph
> Freeport, ME
> '90 Syncro