Eurovan GOT some new wheels

[Abscate]

That blue is lovely, and nicely complimented by the orange actionsplatter.
_________________
.ssS!

[MrPulldown]

Done.

That took way more effort than it should have. The last piece of the puzzle was the hub centric rings. By all indication MB only uses 66.6 bore, but it seems like these wheels are 66.1. Could they be counterfeit MB wheels? They are made in Germany and look to be OE. ???

I was able to sand, file the 66.6 rings down a hair so that they fit. Took a sharpie to the surface before material removal so that I would have a fighting chance at getting it down evenly. Seemed to work.

Based on Abscate's reccomendation, I made myself a wheel hanger. Instead of cutting the head off, I cut a 12mm hex into it. This way I can remove it with a tool. Cleaned it up some, but it came out to be 13mm. Good enough and works well.

Considering getting some VW center caps. Anyone know how to measure and buy center caps? These seem to be a little small? ANy insight.

https://www.amazon.com/LHFACC-Wheel-Center-Replace...cx_mr_hp_d
_________________
2002 EVC

[MrPulldown]

Been driving the van locally with my new wheels and tires.

This weekend I took a 1000 mile road trip with the van partially loaded for camping. Wheels stayed on and didn't explode. Plan on taking them off to examine for cracks this week. Included were hitting many pot holes while traveling 80 mph.

The Nokians held up good. The only issue on the trip were the 2 rear tires. I had reused the Acclera Alpha tires as they had less than 50% thread wear. One of the tires however had some feathering and it got worse on the trip. That tire howled like a banshee at speeds over 70 mph. They might need to be replaced sooner than later. These were the tires the shop recommended my father as they were one of the only ones in the right size and XL load rating.

I had also lost one of my wheel weight when I got the tires back from the shop. Yep sitting there on the bottom of my truck bed after I unloaded the wheels and tire. I did not have time to drive back to the shop (and hour away). I mounted the tires on the van in pairs in an attempt to isolate which was the culprit. Drove fine on all my of test. However on this trip I discovered that at speeds of 80+ it will start to vibrate. Might have to get this addressed too. We spend a lot of time in the desert on high speed highways where the speed limit is 80mph.
_________________
2002 EVC

[MrPulldown]

Winter is coming, and we still have our summer wheels and tires on. Since I have the luxury of swapping out to winters whenever I want, I choice to wait till the last moment. Winter rubbers wears much faster than summer. Tires shops around here get backed up several weeks. With people spending half a day to an entire day waiting in line to get their tires swapped; right before a big storm.

When getting these new wheels I knew that they were going to stick out further. The original wheels have a ET of 49 and the new MB alloys have a ET of 37. ET=offset. The smaller the # the further it will stick out of the wheel wells. If someone could explain that to me one day that would be great. From diagrams it seems like it should be the opposite.

I had select the OE wheels to be my winter set up since they are tucked into the wheel wells and will catch more spray. Last week we had a storm come through and I drove the EV around on some wet roads. It had snowed so the roads had been sanded. I ended up getting black road spray all over the side of the van. At first I was puzzled as to why. Never had this issue before, but then I remembered the ET. With just and increase of 12mm it made a noticeable difference on the fenders ability to catch road spray. Something that should be considered when selecting replacement wheels,
_________________
2002 EVC

[MrPulldown]

Winter has come and gone and it is time to swap back on the MB wheels and summer tires. One thing I did not consider when going to the MB wheels was the hardware for running the spare. The lug bolts for the MB wheels are too long and have a different ball seat. If I had a flat last summer I would have been screwed. This year I will pack a set of lug bolts that fit the spare stock steelie. I had already packed a 17/19mm lug wrench to accommodate the 2 different bolt head sizes. Just spaced on the bolts themselves.

If I was to do this over again, I would have stuck with Audi/VW wheels as recommended.

_________________
2002 EVC