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I have a second Thing I purchased from my younger brother. He had just put new tires on it when he decided to move to Germany and left the Thing parked out at my parents house. The tires are new! The little rubber things left over from the injection process haven't even worn off! They were better tires than I had on my '74 daily driver so I decided to move them over.

First I wanted to get the wheels redone. I wanted to get them chromed but could not find a reputable place in town that would do it. After talking to Larry at The Thing Shop, I had them powder coated silver. Yesterday, I got the tires installed on the wheels and bolted up to the car.

I'm not very happy with the result. The new tires have a harder ride than the old ones and the wheels from my brother's Thing are worse than my old ones. Before, I could tell that one wheel had a problem, now it's either two or three wheels. When I get up to 55+mph, it feels like I'm in a vibra-chair.

I'm beginning to think that the only way I'm going to get a smooth ride is to purchase new wheels all the way around. I'm getting tired of driving on a washboard road everywhere I go.

Does anyone have a good tire recommendation? I'd like to stick with the 14inch rims since I now have two good sets of tires.

This may seem overly simplistic, but can't those wheels be balanced?

You bring up a good point. They were spin balanced but Discount Tires tells me they can only get them "close".

Here's the problem. The spin balance machine holds the wheel using a cone that clamps it at the center. They don't bolt it on using the lug nuts. Because my tires have the five wide bolt pattern, they're mostly open with only a few contact points between the wheel and the machine. This makes it very difficult to get the wheel centered correctly and for the out-of-balance vibrations to be read correctly.

Does anyone know about a place that can balance VW tires? I've heard some old timers say that the old bubble balancing tool actually does a better job than spin balancing. I don't know if that's correct but it seems like anything would be better than what I've got.

[This message has been edited by thinger (edited 06-21-2002).]

With the wide-5 pattern the best bet are places that still have the old "balance on the car" machines. These were relatively simple balancers that use a roller system to spin the (non-driven) wheels while on the car (jacked-up) to balance them. Used mainly on front wheels of rear-drive cars; so they largely disappeared with so many front-drive on the road. Anyway, if you can find one (probably an older independent garage is the best bet) they can do the fronts, then rotate and do the rear.

Try any place that does truck tires. That is where I take mine in Dallas. They have cones big enough to fit your rims and get it right.

go to sears, they have the stuff to balance them. thats were i went for the tires on my 64 5 lug stock rims