Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:41:56 -0500
Reply-To: Mike S <mikes@FLATSURFACE.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Mike S <mikes@FLATSURFACE.COM>
Subject: Re: And now - still trying for NEW TIRES
In-Reply-To: <31B8497830064F6FADB4E1AF71957F56@RON>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
At 08:57 AM 3/11/2011, The Bus Depot wrote...
>97 load index tires would have met U.S. standards in 1991, but not if
>the
>Vanagon were made today.
You are, quite simply, wrong. But you obviously don't let facts get in
your way.
>The current standards were ammended in 2003.
And the current regulations can be found at:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title49-vol6/pdf/CFR-2010-title49-vol6-sec571-110.pdf
Anyone can look at them, and they will find you're just blowing smoke.
Passenger car Load Index 97 tires meet the regulations for all Vanagons
other than Syncros.
At 05:55 PM 3/9/2011, The Bus Depot wrote...
>I'm done with this.
And, you lied.
> 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
>
>_____________________________________________
>Toll-Free for Orders by PART # : 1-866-BUS-DEPOT
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