Today, I spoke with a Michelin rep (Kristy or Christy) at the national
customer number (800-847-3435) for Michelin.  According to her, the Agilis
has been discontinued in the US and Michelin has not made a decision about
what they will replace the tire with or if they will import the tire in the
future.  My first thought was that she was mistaken since I purchased five
Agilis 61 tires two weeks ago from Tire Rack.  According to her, I was
extremely lucky to have received the Agilis 61 tires.  She then said
Michelin is now directing all Vanagon and Eurovan owners to call Nokian Tire
North American Headquarters at 800-565-2525 and that Nokian was going to
import tires to fit Vanagons and Eurovans.  She never asked me if I had a
Vanagon, she knew I had one based on my purchase of the Agilis 61 in the
185/14 size.

I called Nokian at 800-565-2525 and spoke with Al DiBaggio at Nokian
Headquarters in Nashville.  He was extremely helpful and said that both
Volkswagen and Michelin customer reps had started directing Vanagon/Eurovan
tire customers to him.  He is genuinely surprised at what is going on and
told me he was not
familiar with the Vanagon or Eurovan and is trying to decide how many tires
to import to meet demand.  He asked VW for information on how many Vanagons
were produced so that he could estimate an appropriate number of tires to
order, but as of this afternoon, he hadn't heard back from VW.  I directed
him to the www.vanagon.com site so that he could get a feel for Vanagons,
etc.

According to Al, he will have two tires in a 185/14 that have the load
carrying capacity for Vanagons.  Al said the demand for these tires was
unexpected, but now that he will be carrying them, information on the tires
will be added to his website http://www.nokian.com/ .  He hoped to have this
information posted by tomorrow afternoon.

One tire is a Nokian CQ with a load index of 100.  He has 12-14 of these in
stock and will receive more. These are supposed to be a fairly aggressive
all season but more of a winter type tire.

Another tire is a Nokian CS with a load index of 102 and he expects to
receive them later this month.

We have all heard of Michelin reps in the past saying Michelin was
discontinuing a particular tire when in fact the tires were never
discontinued.  But, I have never heard of Michelin reps directing customers
to another tire company.   Based on my conversation with Al DiBaggio, he
certainly believes that Michelin has discontinued the Agilis in the US and
he is scrambling to determine how many Nokian CS's and CQ's to import.

Thought I would pass this information along.  If you want further
information, check the Nokian website tomorrow or call Al, or call Michelin
and see if you get the same story I did.  Al did say he was leaving for
Finland later this week or early next week--I forget which.

Now you know as much as I do.

Harold
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Harold Teer
Harrisonburg, VA
teerhb@hotmail.com
'91 Westy

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