Having compared in my own hands the steel 15" Passat wheel with the
steel 15" Vanagon wheel from VW South Africa I can assure you that the
Vanagon wheel is made of much thicker steel and weighs quite a bit more.
I doubt that the Passat wheel would fail in any way under normal use and
I know people who have used them and are still using them on Westys. I
don't see any way to avoid the fact that the Passat wheel would suffer
damage more easily than the Vanagon one.  I refer only to steel wheels
in this regard. I have had poor experiences with the 14" alloy Vanagon
wheels and know plenty of other Syncro owners who have bent, cracked,
and/or chiped those Vanagon 14" alloys. In contrast the 15" Audi 5000
Turbo alloys seem much stronger in my experience and the experiences of
others.

Mark

rsf wrote:

>I would guess that the failure rate on those vehicles mentioned is not
>different then the failure rate of the factory 14" alloy rims. I just cannot
>find comments in the board achieves to prove any different.
>
>Plus neither the gowesty/van-caf� rims have load rating either so it's pure
>guessing that they are major differences between the rims. (of course the
>Rhein are vw recommednd is SA) You are just drawing conclusions that
>something is made considerably less durable only because it's used on a
>lighter vehicle. Fair assumption that designs are created at the lowest
>possible cost to fill the void but I'm pretty sure rim manufactures create
>to a higher standard (then door handle manufactures) so they can cross
>platform their product........................
>
>