I agree.  Someone was paid good money to come up with the appropriate wheels
for any given vehicle - a combination of appearance, performance, handling,
and safety.  He has way more knowledge than I do (perhaps even letters after
his name!), and I defer to his judgment on wheel selection.

Better tire selection; we have plenty (Kumho, Hankook, Nokian, and a host of
others in appropriate sizes and structures; if/when that changes I'll go to
another size.  Appearance: in the eye of the beholder, but I think big rims
look goofy.  Performance: mine is fine.  Not fast, but fine.  I have a
higher fourth gear for lower rpms at cruise and haven't lost acceleration to
bigger wheels.  Safety; slightly lower CG for better handling, other than
that, I'm not that well-paid expert in the earlier paragraph.

Karl Wolz

|-----Original Message-----
|From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
|Dave Mcneely
|Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 5:26 PM
|To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
|Subject: Re: Sorry, Another Question On the Audi Wheels
|
|---- J Stewart <fonman4277@COMCAST.NET> wrote:
| I've had over 80 cars in my 52 years, and probably put different or
|aftermarket rims on 30 of them and never had this much to deal with. Now I
|know why I left stock wheels on my other vanagons! Jeff
|> Jeff Stewart
|
|I've always been confused as to why people put non-stock rims on cars in
|the first place, but then I just try to use a vehicle as it was built to be
|used.  If I didn't think that kind of vehicle would serve my purposes as
|designed/built, I'd get a different kind.  But, different folks have
|different ideas.
|
|One thing I've noticed in recent years is very large rims and consequently
|very thin (very low aspect ratio) tires.  I know about the notion of
|"performance," but isn't holding up to potholes, and for us vanagon users
|rough, unpaved roads considered performance, too?
|
|--
|David McNeely