I backed over a piece of angle iron in my mom's driveway last night and
flattened my right front tire. So I jack it up, pull the flat off and drop
the spare. It suddenly occurs to me that I ought to LOOK at the spare, see
if it's decent. In a year of ownership, even pulling that spare out a dozen
times to get at stuff underneath, I never actually checked the tire. It had
plenty of tread and held air OK-- just never occurred to me. It's a
Continental 185R14C, and from the look of the rubber, I bet it came with the
van when it was shipped from Graz. I drove home on surface streets, keeping
it under 40mph, at it still seems OK-- but I'm definitely replacing it
tomorrow when I get the flat replaced. Just thought I'd mention it, in case
there's some other dunderhead on the list like me, driving around with a 15+
year old tire under the nose.

--
John Bange
'90 Vanagon - "Geldsauger"