Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 07:00:01 -0500
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: And now - still trying for NEW TIRES
In-Reply-To: <31B8497830064F6FADB4E1AF71957F56@RON>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Those failures look like possible over inflation and impact damage. If they
were less than 4 years old they should have been returned for failure
analysis and warranty consideration.
I have seen my share of the original MXL's fail including one of my own.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
The Bus Depot
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 8:58 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: And now - still trying for NEW TIRES
> I'm running the General Altimax 205/70-14's on my '88 GL.
> Dunno that I would put these on a Westy, and definitely not on a
> Syncro but they are just fine for a GL or Carat.
> The Syncro Camper came from the factory with 205/70-14 tires with a
> 97 load index. Why wouldn't you use these?
97 load index tires would have met U.S. standards in 1991, but not if the
Vanagon were made today. In the wake of the 2000-2001 Ford Explorer
rollovers (which caused over 200 deaths and were blamed on Firestone tires
that overheated when used on SUV's), the U.S. government tightened tire
safety standards. The current standards were ammended in 2003. Today
Volkswagen could not have supplied the Vanagon with load index 97 tires in
the United States. Eurovans, for example, had tires with a load index of
100.
I have never heard of any problems with the original Michelin MXL tires on
Vanagons, despite the 97 load index. However there have been reports on the
Samba of Altimax sidewall failures when used on Vanagons. I know of at least
three cases myself. Here are some pics from the Samba:
http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/726987.jpg
http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/726986.jpg
One user had three sidewalls fail out of four. One of which was an inside
sidewall, so curb damage can be ruled out.
Of course one could argue that other factors, such as underinflation, could
cause such failures. (However the person who took the above pics insists
that his tires were properly inflated, and notes that two consecutive sets
of Nokians worked fine but 3 out of 4 of his Altimaxes failed.) But one-off
issues like underinflation would not explain why are their multiple reports
of Altimax failures, yet not a single case reported on the Vanagon List or
the Samba by people using either the original MXL's (at the time), or the
higher capacity Hankooks, Nokians, Yokohamas, etc.
This leads me to conclude (and here I am jumping from fact to conjecture)
that although the original MXL's were only 97 rated like the Altimax, the
"real world" capacity of these two tires is unequal. Either this would mean
that the Michelins were overdesigned (exceeded their rated limits) or the
Altimaxes are underdesigned (do not meet their rated limits). The fact that
97 is so marginal that it no longer meets U.S. D.O.T. safety standards for
Syncros (and arguably Westies) would lead me to believe that the former is
the case - that the Altimaxes indeed meet their specs, but the specs
themselves are insufficent for many Vanagons. Which is exactly why the
standard was raised.
- Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot, Inc.
www.busdepot.com
(215) 234-VWVW
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