[T3] Tires

[Max Welton]

--- On Wed, 10/31/12, Maximilian Bukszpan <mountainvw at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hallo again,
> I would say that I would be very much afraid of riding wide
> tires like 205/15 in winter!!The rule always was: the
> thinner, the better, summer or winter!!Also for gas
> consumption!!
> 165/15 is a real big size already, 175/15 is max. this is
> for rear tires!! front , I would go with max. 145/15 to
> 155/15!!! much better steering response in ALL
> situations!!!
> This is just my opinion after driving Volkswagens for over
> 30 years in all conditions!!
> Best regards, hope it was helpful
> Maximilian Bukszpan

Maximilian, I respect your opinions and hope that they are based on having tried these things yourself. It's possible that something I am doing here is giving me better results though I don't know what that might be. Yesterday I posted my observations with respect to handing, traction, and mileage questions people raised. I agree that the 205s are probably too big, but the 195x65s are working very very well for me in all those categories.

I will add that I used to run 145s on the front of a lowered type-1 KG and found them to lock up very easily in the rain. The combination of a narrower contact patch and smaller radius made the stock front disk brakes (67 KG) too powerful. I never drove that car in the snow, thankfully.

Max Welton
http://www.maxwelton2k.net/