Brent Christensen wrote: ...My understanding is that all tires for a Syncro
need to be within 2.5 mm.
Is this the correct spec?...

I'd really curious if anybody knows this spec *for sure*.

The tires I've been running for about 800 mi. were purchased slightly used,
with 2 of them having about 1-2mm less tread than the other 2. In
retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bought them, but the difference seemed
so small at the time... If it's going to end up messing up my drivetrain
though, I'll replace them.

The manager of my local highly reputable tire shop said the difference -
hardly noticeable -  wouldn't cause a problem - he seemed pretty
knowledgeable about various awd systems (Subaru, Volvo, etc.) - and he
certainly had an easy opportunity to sell me a new set of tires, didn't he?!
The local VW dealer would only say "They all have to be the same size and
treadwear" and didn't know anything about acceptable tolerances - not much
help.

I know all about the whole replacing all 4 (or 5) if one is bad thing, but
how close do they really have to be? The 1-2 mm difference only translates
into several rotations per mile - it seems as if turning while driving
normally would account for almost that much rotational difference on its
own. (Would you eventually ruin your VC if you drove the same direction
around a racetrack for miles and miles? Probably not, but I'm not an expert.
And assuming  500 laps at Daytona won't blow the VC, would it make sense to
match the treadwear left to right rather than front to back? Hmmm...)

Any VW Syncro engineers out there?

Doug Fitz-Randolph
Yarmouth, ME
dfrandolph@talkam.net
'90 Syncro

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