Hippopotabus
Samba Member
Joined: May 27, 2004
Posts: 1600
Location: Miwuk Village, CA
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 Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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This is from the GOWesty site. This made a lot of sense to me when I was doing my research on tires.
http://www.gowesty.com/wheelstiresinfo.html
This (photo to the right) is an example of the 16" diameter by 7.5" width wheel/Michelin 215/60-16 Hydro Edge tire and wheel set we sell here at GoWesty for the VW Vanagon. It was returned to us by one of our customers who, while driving off-road in her fully loaded Syncro Westfalia camper, hit what she described as a "VERY BIG HOLE" at about 45 MPH. Notice the wheel has taken on a rather square shape, and all of the air has rushed out of the tire. The wheel did not come loose. It did not crack or crumble in any way. It just smooshed.
My personal experience: I have had a set of these exact wheels and tires on my personal pop-top Vanagon for the last 9 years, during which time I have driven 90,000+ miles over all sorts of terrain and weather conditions. The damage done to this wheel is not unlike the damage that occurred to one of my wheels when my sweet wife (love you, honey) turned to quiet one of our kids, drove off the road and hit the edge of a 12" concrete drainage ditch. It pretzeled the wheel about 30% MORE than the one in the photo. In fact, it bent the wheel so much that the inside of the wheel caught the front brake caliper suddenly stopping the wheel from rotating, causing the van to come to a screeching halt. Again, the wheel did not come loose, nor did it crack or fail in any other way. It simply deformed in the same way a typical, factory original steel wheel (or just about any other non-brittle wheel) would under the same conditions. I took the tire off the rim, sent the wheel to Bolten Classic Wheel in Gardena, California to have it straightened, mounted THE SAME TIRE back on, installed it back on my van and drove on it for another year. In fact, the only reason I eventually replaced them was so we could start testing Michelin's latest tire, the Hydro Edge, which is on there today.
Now, there has been much hoopla with regard to the load rating of various wheels and tires used on Vanagons. Some have criticized us for selling these wheels for use on VW campers in the 15" and 16" diameters without knowing exactly what the factory load rating is. So OK, we don't know what the manufacturers load rating is. We have tried to obtain this information, but have had no success to date. We have been criticized because we have stated on several occasions, "believe me, they are strong enough". How do we know they are strong enough? Well, after all, these wheels were originally designed to fit many different Mercedes models, including their full-sized 126-body car available in very high performance models. Mind you, these are cars that can weigh MORE than a typical Vanagon, are capable of TWICE speed, cornering capability and braking, and have over 4 TIMES the horsepower of a Vanagon. What other evidence do we have to support the claim of "strong enough"? Ummmm... look at the photo!
Okay; for some people logic and seeing is not believing. It seems that we should have some sort of professional engineer to take a look at the situation and see what he thinks. "Maybe get a professional opinion", you say. Well, perhaps I can be of some assistance. I (Lucas) have a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo. I also took and passed (on the first try) ALL 16 HOURS of the state of California's exams and received my Professional Engineering license in Mechanical Engineering. Only about one in three individuals pass these tests on the first try. A professional engineering license is the engineering equivalent to a medical doctor's "MD". It is kind of what the BAR exam is to lawyers. Passing the exams doesn't mean you are a genius, nor does it mean you are just "book smart" enough to get a degree; it means you can actually apply the knowledge to solving problems, on the spot, within a time limit. So, OK, some people say, "big deal, experience is what matters". Well, my first job out of college was as a mechanical engineer for FMC Corporation in Santa Clara, California. I spent five years doing, you guessed it, failure analysis engineering. My job was to set up tests that would take various components of off-road military vehicles to the limit. Now, I spent many hours first calculating the theoretical limits of these components, of course. But you better believe that was NEVER enough. Calculus or not, my client wanted to see broken parts. Period. So, no matter what the numbers said, we would strap that shock, or that suspension control arm, or that road wheel, or whatever it was to a big @#$%%##$%ing machine and worked it, 'TIL IT BROKE! There is no substitute for TESTING. While others in the industry have been pontificating on what wheel and tire to use on the VW Bus and Vanagon, we at Go Westy Camper Products have been TESTING on our own vehicles, for the past 18 years and hundreds of thousands of miles. As far as we are, and any logical thinking person with better things to do is concerned, the issue of wheel strength is a NON-ISSUE.
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Celer, Silens, Letalis
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