Couple Questions - Long

[tiAn@usiw.net (Christian Els)]

"Nice wide snow tires" is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. For best
traction on snow and wet surfaces you want a skinny little profile, like a
165/80R14. Wide tires will float over the top of the surface while the
skinny ones sink in and find actual traction. Except on pure ice surfaces,
but unless you explore a lot of frozen lakes you are missing the benefit of
snow tires with a wide size.

Also, a wider tire is more prone to tramlining and more sensitive to
alignment discrepancies, some combination of which seems to describe the
second problem you describe. Double check you toe setting, make sure it is
just a smidge (1/16-1/8") toed-in.

The bounce could be a balance issue, an out-of-round tire, a flat-spotted
tire if it has been sitting (might reshape after putting some miles on
them), a blown strut or a bent wheel. Eyeball the car looking for wheel
weights, stress marks on tire sidewalls, wobbly wheels (have a friend move
the car slowly, walk behind and watch), or oil on the strut/shock shafts.

When I first put 14" wheels on my cabby if felt decidedly heavier and was
almost scary to drive until I added GTI swaybars and aligned it. Now it
feels just like my GTI, go figure...

Cheers,


Christian Els
Columbia, MO
87 16V For Sale



----- Original Message -----
From: <cwass99@rogers.com>
To: <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Thursday, 14 February, 2002 19:18
Subject: Couple Questions - Long


> Hi,
>      About a month ago I picked up new rims and tires for my 87 8v.
Normal VW
> 14 inch rims with nice wide snow tires (essential for driving in Ottawa).
I'm
> wondering if the weight of the rims (they're a lot heavier than the 13
inch
> stock rims) and the bigger tires would cause the 2 problems I seem to have
> acquired since then.  The first is more annoying, but less frightening.
At
> about 35 to 45 Kph ( 20 to 30 Mh) it's almost like the tires are seriously
out
> of round or something, it almost hops down the road.  Sort of like the
feeling
> of going over evenly spaced lumps in the road every few seconds, but not
> forceful like bumps.  The scarier problem is that above about 120Kh (70
Mph)
> the car feels very "floaty".  I don't seem to have any real traction
problem
> (confirmed yesterday when I had to stop extremely fast because of traffic,
> several people around me didn't stop until shortly after tapping the cars
in
> front of them, I didn't even lock up the fronts).  The steering seems
about
> 200% more sensitive and I have to adjust very frequently to stay in my
lane.
> It always wants to drift.  There's no real wobble or vibration, though,
other
> than a teeny bit because of a passenger side motor mount that needs
replacing.
>      I have no idea about the lumpy low speed.  My first thought about the
> "floaty" feeling and extreme steering sensitivity was maybe the wider and
> bigger tires were doing it and I needed to either get used to it or adjust
my
> suspension to compensate.  Then I saw all the messages about losing a tire
> because of rear wheel bearings and now I'm getting worried.  Am I about to
join
> the society of high-speed sideways people?  There's no apparent noise
(tough to
> tell with the Dynomax muffler...that puppy is loud ;)), but given the
weird low
> speed up and down thing I wonder.  Also, it doesn't always do that, I
think I
> have to actually maintain a speed in that range and it needs to be warmed
up
> (again difficult to tell, I normally accelerate pretty quickly to above
50/30).
>      Thanks for any thoughts.  I might park the little beasty until I'm
sure I
> won't end up hurting it badly.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Colin
>
>
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