Date:         Sat, 15 Apr 95 16:16:46 EDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         ja@decws3.coe.wvu.edu (John Anderson)
Subject:      Blasphemy, tires, and handling.

Well, I might get kicked off for this but this weekend I
borrowed dad's '87 Caravan to move some stuff and what
I want to know is how does it handle as well as it does
on regular load 195/75 series, 2 polyester sidewall ply
tires.  Sure, it's lighter, and more aerodynamic but I mean
come on this thing will outhandle a bus and probably a
Vanagon and it has 155,000 miles on it.  Now we did do the
struts and shocks about 20,000 ago but springs and front
strut bearings are origional.  I can see that it outhandles
a bus, after all no offense to our favorite vehicles but a
design Ferdinand and the boys put out in 193? had no business
being used into the late '70s, coupled with skinny tires and
a tall vehicle buses were never meant to handle in a normal
sense.  But what about Vanagons?, them things got coil springs
I tell ya, and though I don't remember certainly something like
a truly modern front suspension design, double A arms or at least
some sort of multi link assembly, should be better than MacPherson
struts, still if you don't have reinforced tires, beware. Of
couse the Vanagon still was tall and not overly aero and origionaly
still rode on the 185's so I can see that as well.  But why on
the Eurovan, with as much of a car suspension as VW will ever
put on their big van (they may make that Ford thing afterall),
front wheel drive, great aero (for VW), no rear weight bias from
hanging the engine out behind the rear wheels, why does it
still require 6 ply rated tires? Load Rating?, certainly no greater
than a Grand Caravan is it?  As a total devils advocate I'd like
to say the Caravan has never had an engine or tranny rebuild, thouhg
the head gasket was replaced at 80,000 or so as a recall, it has
good compression all round on its Mitsu inline 2.6, and only
uses maybe 1/4 qt of oil every 5000 or so which is primarily due
to the oil that leaks past the shot valve stem seals overnight
and burns off on the first start up, a problem we could fix but have
been too lazy to deal with, Dad beats this thing incidently, it
is driven hard as he bought it for nothing from a friend to replace
our '86 Vanagon after I rolled it back in '90.  It does get regular
oil/filter and air/fuel filter changes but that is it, yes you can't
fit a sheet of plywood in it, the steering is so overboosted its
ridiculous but the interior and exterior have worn as well as our
Vanagon was and certainly the carpet is much better.  Anyway just
wondering, I also note a lot of these have real engine problems by
this mileage and ours probably has lasted because the previous owner
a friend of ours changed oil every 3000 religiously.

John Anderson
ja@coe.wvu.edu
'71 Westy, '90 Corrado G60, this weekend only in cool blue '87 Caravan