Date:         Tue, 21 Nov 95 22:25:17 EST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         John Anderson <ja@coe.wvu.edu>
Subject:      Re: Tires and Handling.

Hmmn, seems the last time I had something like this as
my heading I started a flame war, but now for some real questions.
I'm wondering if anyone knows whether or not the proper front/rear
inflation balance is more or less important than the reinforced tires.
FI you are supposed to go F 30psi R 40psi on a Bus for reinforced
tires, even higher in the rear for a C rated.  Caveat, you can't
inflate a regular load range tire beyond 35psi.  Enter the parents
'77 has 4 nearly new 185R14 tires, 2 XZX's 2 Dunlops, nice tires
good tread, not reinforced.  Even with new ball joints (replaced
by anal PO cause 1 boot split) and an incredible tight front end with no
play in the steering it handles like crap compared to my '78, which
has shot steering damper, 20 degrees of free movement without turning
the tires, 150k on the ball joints and the rest.  The only difference
the '78 runs on a well worn set of reinforced XZX's at the correct
pressures.  The '77 I have at like 30F/36R.  So since it seems a shame
to ditch the darn tires, but since mom and dad are used to modern FWD
VW's now days, and Vanagon's before and have not extensively driven a
Bus in 8-10 years I'm wondering if I would not benefit greatly by
getting 2 reinforced XZX's for the back, running them at 40psi and
leaving the two regular XZX's on the front at 30 psi like it says to.
Would this be a benefit or would the mix of stiffness be even more
detrimental, like running both bias ply and radials on the same vehicle?
Any opinions greatly appreciated.  Personaly I drove the '76 on 4 el
cheapo, shouldn't even be on a heavy car tires for a couple of years,
you simply have to learn to go with the wind, but those darn vortices
that come off the back of a semi can really terrify.

John
ja@coe.wvu.edu