Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 23:17:38 -0600
Reply-To: Paul & Becky Oliver <oliver8@TDS.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Paul & Becky Oliver <oliver8@TDS.NET>
Subject: Re: Cupping of tires et al
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Cupping tires can be caused by anyone of the following; or a combination of
them. Number 1 is shock absorbers, ball joints (or alignment), improper air
pressure and balance. Of course bad wheel bearings will cause/contribute to
cupping. But most of the time it has been the shocks and ball joints.
Start by checking the ball joints, sometimes they will have a little "play"
and an alignment will be within "specs" but the tires will still cup. Not
every mechanic will check ball joints if the alignment appears okay.
Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark C" <obeechi@RUNBOX.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 9:41 PM
Subject: Cupping of tires et al
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