Date:         Mon, 3 Oct 2005 10:00:34 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: Vanagon Tire Guidelines Report
In-Reply-To:  <a06002001bf665751a2b5@[218.101.117.31]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> Its a good report, Larry, but for two things. You insist
> that a Vanagon is a "Light Truck" and needs truck tires, 
> and that just ain't so. 

Volkswagen disagrees with you, and has for four decades. They're the ones
who have consistently specified the use of ONLY sidewall-reinforced or 6-8
PR tires on VW vans ever since the 1960's, at recommended inflation levels
that rule out the use of passenger car tires (which cannot be inflated to
the specs that a Vanagon requires).  This was most certainly done on the
basis of solid engineering and testing, not just by closing their eyes and
randomly picking specs out of a hat. The fact that VW updated these specs
throughout the years (i.e. updating inflation specs on Vanagons) shows that
they revisited the issue periodically as well (and in fact amended their
original requirements upward, not downward, as a result)  VW certainly had a
strong cost incentive to factory-equip their vans with much-cheaper
passenger car tires for the last four decades instead of uprated tires.
Don't you think they would have if they felt it was safe?

> I have used a 1984 GL as my contractor's work 
> van for 12 years. I have run only passenger car tires
> and have had no problems whatsoever. 

And many people have driven without seatbelts for 12 years, or smoked for 12
years, and had no problem whatsoever. This means nothing. You are
substituting your emperical evidence for what is undoubtably decades of
solid engineering and testing on the part of the vehicle manufacturer.
Besides, having driven your 1984 for 12 years with passenger car tires, how
would you KNOW how much better it might handle with correctly rated tires?
I have a friend who finally followed my advice and replaced his passenger
car tires with correct ones on an '83 he's owned for about a decade.  He
cannot stop gushing about how it drives like a whole different vehicle! And
that's just in everyday driving, not a panic situation.

In a panic situation (i.e. a sudden swerve) a correctly rated and inflated
tire will have far less sidewall flex, which could make the difference
between avoiding an accident entirely, and rolling your van.  Perhaps you
will never find yourself in that situation.  (Just as perhaps you will never
find yourself in a situation where you wish you were wearing seatbelts.)  On
the other hand, perhaps you will find yourself in your upside down Vanagon
with a broken neck, wishing you had sprung for the extra $20 each or so to
get the correct tires for your van. Do you feel lucky?

> I don't understand why you are so stuck on this. 

Ask Volkswagen, not Larry. They are the one who have been stuck on this for
about 40 years.  Larry is just parsing, explaining, and repeating VW's
recommendations.

> A 1982 Crown Vic runs passenger 
>tires and weighs more than my van

This is comparing apples to oranges. I'm not sure exactly what a 1982 Crown
Vic weighs (do you?) but it also rolls on significantly larger tires
(205-70-15). A Vanagon is an unusually heavy vehicle on an unusually small
diameter wheel.  (Besides, given the Ford Explorer tire scandal, where
insufficiently rated tires resulted in rollovers, Ford is a particularly
poor example to cite, don't you think? :-) 

> Larry, If you want it to drive more safely, install  
> wider rims to hold more volume of air, and mount 
> some nice modern car tires with modern tread
> design and a modern compound. 

VW put larger and wider rims on their later Eurovans - and did NOT remove
their recommendation for an extra load tire. 

> No really, don't just theorise, do it and see.  

Actually, it is you who are theorizing. Larry is using solid VW
specifications. 

It does not cost much more to buy the correct tires for your Vanagon, and
there are plenty of good ones that meet those specs. Even if somehow you
believe that your emperical experience trumps 40 years of ongoing Volkswagen
factory testing and engineering, other than a few extra bucks there really
isn't any downside to "playing it safe" and limiting your tire choices to
the many that meet VW specs.  Maybe you'll never need the extra margin of
safety. But maybe you will. Is it worth gambling your life on it?  

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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