Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 08:24:09 -0800
Reply-To: Rich Bennington <rich.bennington@CHARTER.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Rich Bennington <rich.bennington@CHARTER.NET>
Subject: Re: Vanagon OEM tire report Yes, I am still using a 22 year old
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 18:24:35 -0800
>From: Old Volks Home <oldvolkshome@GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: Vanagon OEM tire report Yes, I am still using a 22 year old
>tire
>
>Ditto on the end too. 17 years ago I had an 81 Diesel Rabbit Pickup with
>Michelins on the rear (LT rated) and both suffered the same sidewall
>blowout that both Roger and Robert describe, one of them on the Golden
>State Fwy
>(I-5) in Burbank at around 65mph, the second a couple of weeks later on a
>regular major surface street (50mph) in the beautiful San Fernando Valley.
>No load in the bed at either time, never carried much in it anyway. The
>noise scared the willies outa me. I think they had about 4K on them when
>they blew Haven't touched a Michelin since, nor care to.
>I sure miss that truck though.........
>--
>Jim Thompson
Were LT tires the correct tires for the Rabbit? That "truck" was really a
small car with the back turned into a truck, if I recall. LT designation is
typically for 1/2 ton or 3/4 ton trucks that need the load.
I mention this because most of the vanagon tire problems are from using
"incorrect" tires. The vanagon, especially the camper, needs special tires
because of the 14" narrow wheel and the weight. There is tons of
information about proper vanagon tires in the archives or at vanagon.com and
experiences with using the wrong tires.
Because of liability problems associated with using "incorrect" tires, a lot
of tire shops (like Costco) now refuse to mount any tire size/rating not
specified by the manufacturer of the car. This is because misapplication
increases the failure rate.
I'm not saying your Michelin blowouts were necessarily due to incorrect
application; it could have been any number of reasons, like junk in the
road, incorrect inflation, mfg. defect, or a combination of things. My own
experience with using Michelins on dozens of cars for over 35 years has been
flawless, except for a flat once due to a 2" roofing nail.
All tire manufactures have some percentage of failures/blowouts. Really
bad blowout statistics can be found for Firestone ATX and Wilderness tires
on Ford Explorers, Continental General tires on Lincoln Navigators, the
Firestone Steeltex tires on Ford Excursions, and the Goodyear Load Range E
tires on 15-passenger vans. Although I haven't seen failure stats on
Michelins, I am guessing they have one of the lower failure rates in the
industry, because of their manufacturing processes.
Rich
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