I'd always heard that if the tires were the same circumference they wouldn't
hurt the car.  The handling might be odd because of different
characteristics on either side but mostly we don't use our vehicles, any of
them, let alone the vanagon near the limits where this matters most.

Having said that I say from personal experience you'd better have the same
tires on each side of an axle on a BMW or you'll really feel weird handling.
It's even quite apparent when there are different tires front to back.

Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: Rico Sapolich <JKrevnov@AOL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 2:43 PM
Subject: Re: slashed tires, used tires

> In a message dated 3/17/00 6:23:26 PM, bchristensen@INFOGENESIS.COM
writes:
>
> << As to using mix & match tires, there's really no big problem  >>
>
> Douglas:
> From the experts in these matters, I have always heard NOT to mix tires on
> the same axle.  The logic behind this is that one of them may break
traction
> before the other causing all manner of handling weirdness if not an
accident.
>  Sounds reasonable to me.
>
> I have 1 Continental RS771 which was the OEM tire on one of my vans.  It
has
> always been a spare and you can have for the cost of shipping if this
matches
> the one you already have.
> Rich