Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 03:41:57 GMT
Reply-To: obeechi@RUNBOX.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Mark C <obeechi@RUNBOX.COM>
Subject: Cupping of tires et al
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Hi.. I had a tire a blow out on the freeway... real fun.. it was a used tire, and it broke/split along the inner sidewall...
I replaced it.. and it didn't sound right... I went to a Pep Boys (this is a pepboy tire) and the guy just wanted to adjust the air... well it was the same as it was a couple thousand miles ago... and so I told him I didn't think that was the cause.. and he got condescending...
Then I took it to a VW mechanic, near the time of close... and he rode it around and said it was fine
Then I took it to another pep boys.. and they rebalanced the tire... the weight which was placed on the inside, had fallen off.. this took the shudder out... but it still didn't sound right
Took it to another Pep Boys.. (cause it was saturday).. and wanted them to check the bearings.. They ended up pressing some bearings in... 210.00.... But... the noise didn't seem right... Now I was left with the feeling the didn't check out the bearings in the first place...
Took it to another Pep Boys (now it was sunday)... and this older mechanic it checked out... said my tires are cupping, that the front shocks are bad.. and the rack and pinion is leaking...
Well the steering is fine.. in fact its been leaking for a long time.. even drove across the country with the same leak.... but would the rack and pinion cause a variation in sound or road to tire noise...
As far as the front shocks... they're bilsteins with 100,000 more or less miles on them... According to Bilstein they're supposed to be efficient to 98% for a 100,000 miles... but I did have a bmw wih massive amounts of miles, and had to replace those bilsteins which were actually leaking....
the bilsteins on the vanagon aren't leaking.. and the boge's they replaced had had about 100,000 miles and they had just seemed kind of soft.. whereas these seem more the opposite.. hard... and the road noise has a dirty not smooth quality to it from the front...
So is there anything they might have missed.. anything else that could cause a rotational dirty sound ... the tire that blew bent the wheel (I was on the freeway)... but I'm not using that wheel...
And as far as cupping goes... on a vanagon, is a bad shock the only cause, or is alignment also a cause... It stays pretty straight when I let go of the wheel, but sad to say, I've never even had it aligned since I got it... and the steering wheel isn't altogther straight when I go straight, it appears slightly turned to one side...
Thanks