Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 13:10:44 -0600
Reply-To: Al and Sue Brase <albeeee@MCHSI.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Al and Sue Brase <albeeee@MCHSI.COM>
Subject: Re: Go Westy's 16" wheel offset ?
In-Reply-To: <43E4EA4A.7000300@earthlink.net>
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My own experience with a stock 14" Vanagon alloy wheel convinces me
that they are pretty strong. I was hit a glancing blow in the rear edge
of the sliding door/ right rear tire// quarter panel area by a mid size
GM vehicle that I turned left in front of. (She did turn off her left
signal just before she hit me. I think the cell phone call was more
important.) The blow totalled my car and hers. It bent the right
trailing arm by 5+ degrees. The momentum bent the front transmission
mount moving the trans nose about 1/2" to the right. It ruined the tire,
but it put only a very small dent on the rim of my alloy wheel.
Certainly the rim didn't take all the blow, but it did take that part
of the blow that bent the trailing arm.
I put the wheel on my current 91 GL and have been driving on it for
thousands of miles.
Probably a couple of destructive tests could determine quite easily
what the yield point of the wheels would be. No doubt the manufacturers
have already done such tests. Convincing them to make such knowledge
public might be a challenge! There is no upside for them to say it would
be okay. The best thing for them to say would be: "Don't do it! We
warned you!"
Al Brase
November 1955 (Wolfsburg) pickup LOOKING FOR ORIGINAL 15" RIMS!
69 doublecab
Vanagons
mark drillock wrote:
> Having compared in my own hands the steel 15" Passat wheel with the
> steel 15" Vanagon wheel from VW South Africa I can assure you that the
> Vanagon wheel is made of much thicker steel and weighs quite a bit more.
> I doubt that the Passat wheel would fail in any way under normal use and
> I know people who have used them and are still using them on Westys. I
> don't see any way to avoid the fact that the Passat wheel would suffer
> damage more easily than the Vanagon one. I refer only to steel wheels
> in this regard. I have had poor experiences with the 14" alloy Vanagon
> wheels and know plenty of other Syncro owners who have bent, cracked,
> and/or chiped those Vanagon 14" alloys. In contrast the 15" Audi 5000
> Turbo alloys seem much stronger in my experience and the experiences of
> others.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> rsf wrote:
>
>> I would guess that the failure rate on those vehicles mentioned is not
>> different then the failure rate of the factory 14" alloy rims. I just
>> cannot
>> find comments in the board achieves to prove any different.
>>
>> Plus neither the gowesty/van-café rims have load rating either so
>> it's pure
>> guessing that they are major differences between the rims. (of course
>> the
>> Rhein are vw recommednd is SA) You are just drawing conclusions that
>> something is made considerably less durable only because it's used on a
>> lighter vehicle. Fair assumption that designs are created at the lowest
>> possible cost to fill the void but I'm pretty sure rim manufactures
>> create
>> to a higher standard (then door handle manufactures) so they can cross
>> platform their product........................
>>
>>
>
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