Also, It is important that you understand what you are looking for in load
range or maximum weight rating before going shopping for tires since tire
dealers have been known to sell Vanagon owners tires that do not meet these
requirements while attesting that they do... in other words either some tire
dealers don't know what they're doing and/or they would rather just sell you
what they have in stock and tell you it okay when it is not... in fact not
even safe.

Bill

----- Original Message -----
From: "(Donna Cassano)" <pokeswagon@BLAZENET.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 12:59 PM
Subject: Align and rotate

> Got a few questions on tire rotation and alignment.
>
> I'm in the process of getting new tires and I'm trying to decide WHO to
> buy them from. I would really like to give the business to the Ma and Pa
> shop down the road, but I'm planning on traveling and reloacating soon
> and I'm thinking that maybe I should go with a larger supplier (Like
> Sears or NTB) so that they will do free rotations for me. But I wonder
> if that is really neccessary. Couldn't I rotate my tires myself ? The
> big questions are as follows:
>
> 1) When you rotate tires, do you have to re-balance them?
>
> 2) What is the proper rotation? I always thought that it was a kind of
> criss-cross rotation, but looking in my VW owners manual last night,
> they say keep the left tires on the left and the right tires on the
> rigth and just switch the front tires with the back tires. ???
>
> 3) I know that when you get new tires, you should get your front end
> aligned. Does this also apply when you rotate your tires?
>
> 4) How hard is an alignment to do myself?
>
> Any help appreciated.
> Peace - donna
> '84 Westy (Pepe)
>