Problem with this, if taken to an extreme, could be to induce extra wear and tear on the van's suspension and driveline components. It may also reduce driveability if you end up downshifting every time you reach a hill. Larger tires and rims can add weight and unsprung weight is the culprit to be concerned about in terms of handling and suspension wear. I will also share an experience I had with a non vanagon vehicle. I have a 1971 Dodge B100 van with V8 and automatic transmission. The standard tires were 14" 80 series 205. I achieved about 13MPG running with these at 65MPH. Wishing to better this I switched to 15" 80 series 235LT. Gas mileage dropped to 12.5MPG. What I found was that every little hill that came along required me to give it more gas to keep the speed up. If I lived in an area where there were no hills it might have worked out, but in this state we have lots of hills, even on the interstate highways. Maybe in your area of Canada (?) this is not an issue. It may be an issue though if you are constantly bucking a headwind. Believe it may be a matter of where you end up on the torque curve/RPM/MPH for the engine and transmission combination you have. Best Regards Howard Allen S. Portland, Maine Think about packaging as an enabling technology
Malcolm Stebbins <mwstebbins@YAHOO.COM> Sent by: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM> 10/12/2005 11:00 AM Please respond to Malcolm Stebbins
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM cc: Subject: Re: There's a New Wheel in Town... Almost
> www.vanagonparts.com wrote: > 15" x 7" with an ET25 I'm sure that it has been discussed, and I just did not read the discussion, BUT, can someone please point my browser in the direction of past discussions as to what 15" rims do to the final RPMs of a van in 4th gear? I'm sure that: 1) it depends on what tyre one puts on the 15" rims, 2) can one get bigger tyres so that the RMMs are lower at highway speeds? 3) one looses a bit of power with 15" rims. 4) 15" rims in combination with re-gearing the tranny. 5) FWIW I have a 91 syncro westy with stock tranny and stock 14" rims with Agilis tyres (about 3200 rpm at 100 kph (62.5 mph). 6) What other implications, ramafications are there to changing to 15" rims? Thanks for your patients, I just skipped previous discussions. Malcolm (thinking of going with bigger rims/tyres to get fewer RPMs to get better gas milage to have money left over to spend on my travels :-) )
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