Hey,
     Lets put this to rest. If your going 100 MPH, fully loaded
and hit a huge pot hole, I'm sure your passenger tires will blow.
To ensure they don't, VW wanted a reinforced tire. That's all.
 End of story. NOw, there are other benifits to this tire. Better
handling etc.

     Your the man the list needs. Maybe you could convince one of you
big time connections at a tire co. to build or make another prodution
run of a Vanagon specific tire? This is why I brought up this Thread in
the first place.

            Eric                   86-VW4x4
            vw4x4@fyi.net          72-240z
            Pittsburgh, PA USA     1936-Chrysler

On Mon, 19 Apr 1999, Paul Schiemer wrote:

> Really paints a pretty dismal picture of FLATS don't it? Whole lot of
> 'Chicken Little' misinformation being bandied about here (which I will be
> the first to admit I may have promulgated a portion).
> I have some big time connections with a number of tire manufacturers. I use
> a lot of their product in high performance applications (whereas any Westy,
> save the Snychros, is in diametric opposition to such a thing).
> What I'm gonna do is contact them individually and get their skinny on the
> whole thing, then do a little report here for y'all.  Promise that it won't
> be too technical nor full of charts and the like- just handling some of the
> more inflamatory, doomsday issues (hopefully once and for all).
> I hate to think anybody is out there sweating bullets every time they drive
> their bus because somebody else (sic; albeit uninformed) says the whole
> sidewall is going to shred the next time they make a hard turn.
>
> And gimme a break before anybody does the flame thing- it'll take a couple
> days to hook up with them (different parts of the World). Just leave it lay
> for the time being- or, as they say on the tube, please standby.
>