Personally, the 356's are just lousy tires but they alone should not be scary to drive on. Was the suspension properly inspected for loose/worn components and properly aligned? In particular, the front radius rod bushings need to be checked carefully. The radius rods are the rods that attaché the lower control arms to that front sub-frame. The bushings may look OK but can still be bad. These bushings set the front wheel caster angle. Caster is one of the most important but miss-understood angle of the front suspension. Caster gives the vehicle that "go straight" feeling and returns the steering to center after a turn. Caster angle differences from side to side, (cross caster) is what often causes that sideways pull. The caster is also affected by different size tires front/rear and vehicle loading. A really good alignment guy will also consider tire width when adjusting within the allowed range. Dennis Note new e-mail address. -----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of mad madeline Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 2:20 PM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Tire Choice Question Irecently purshased a new set of Yokohama 356s @ 185 r14 8ply. Since the first moment I drove the van it wass all over the road. Like a pick-up with a load of gravel in the back. We changed the tire pressure from 38/43 F/R to 44/44 to 43/53 and the handling did not change. Gets worse with speed. It was so bad that we aborted the trip. So now the tire dealer has offered to put whatever tire we want on it. I have always had good luck with michelins and Have never had good results with any other brand. So I need to decide between the 1)Agelis 185r14 or 2) LTX 195 70 14 (dont have my notes in front and may be 195 75 14). The previous tires were 205 LTXs which seem to not be made now. The van drove nicely with those. Does it steer so bad because of the 185 size?? Thoughts?
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