Dennis, your reply confuses me.  The 205/70-14XL that came on the vans was the
General Alti-Max, iirc.  That tire was barely within spec, and lots of people
reported problems with it deforming and not having good handling
characteristics, at least according to threads on the Samba and the Vanagon
mailing list.

Do you have any  specific recommendation of 205/70-XL tires?

The Kumho 857 tires that I have now have shown excellent handling
characteristics, and are well within spec.  Like the Hankook RA08, they are
listed on web sites in other countries as being for vans and transporters but in
this country they are marketed for trailers (same as the Hankook), probably
because the size has such limited application otherwise.  I would buy another
set of Kumhos, except they are quite pricey, and only ran for about 35k miles.
I have run them on back country roads, very rocky, muddy, sandy, steep.  No
traction problems.  Though I would not consider them suitable for snow or ice
conditions, I did drive from Dallas to Edmond, OK (OKC area) via a roundabout
route following the Christmas blizzard of 2009 with no problems.
---- Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> That Nexen is a horrible tire, probably best suited to trailer use. Either
choice is still a low performance tire. I would still go with one of the
205/70-14XL alternatives just as the factory did 87 and later.
>
---- Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> That Nexen is a horrible tire, probably best suited to trailer use. Either choice is still a low performance tire. I would still go with one of the 205/70-14XL alternatives just as the factory did 87 and later.
>
> Dennis
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Dave Mcneely
> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 9:49 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: ok, now a tire question
>
> Any reasons to choose one over the other:  Nexen SV820 or Hankook RA08? Nexen is a little less expensive, but not dramatically so.   BTW, both are available at WalMart, if ordered online.  Only Nexen if you go to the store.  Hankook but not Nexen is available at Discount Tire.  I do prefer to do business with Discount over WalMart.   Thanks, mcneely

--
David McNeely