Posted this on my other forum but thought you lot might be interested?
I've been into and owned classic cars for years as well as aircooled VWs and always wanted whitewall tyres for them, however as you know in this country whitewalls are difficult to come by and expensive! There are alternatives of course, have your own ones converted to whitewall or tyre paint. A casual search of the web for tyre paint reviews seems to conclude that it either goes grey, flakes off or is just a plain waste of money!
So what next, the readily available whitewall tyre flaps. You deflate your tyre, break the bead and slip them underneath the rim, you then reinflate the tyre and there you go instant whitewalls! Look great dont they? Well hang on an even more casual web search results in people warning you not to buy them, they get ruined in a short time , you need to lubricate them between tyre and flap and worse they wear away the tyre wall, not what you want on any vehicle never mind a heavy van!
Recently I came across RAVUS a German company who manufacture a whitewall tyre flap thats a bit different? A bit more web searching found me buying a set directly off their German website and now I have them fitted to the van and so far I am very very pleased indeed. I will do a long term review later which with my high mileage drives will probably be very short - already done 500 miles since fitting and no ill effects that I can see?
Ok so how is it different well the flaps have an under liner that sits on the tyre and the white flap sits on top of it and is attached to a stainless wheel trim rather than the wheel itself. Best bit is they are easy to swap over when changing tyres/wheels but of course only if you have standard rims they dont work for alloys for example?
You fit the white flap (Vinyl not rubber) to the stainless rim (these are pretty similar to the ones available here but I got the Ravus ones) you locate plastic clips that hold the flap to the trim however this is not compulsary but I did'nt want to lose my flaps so for 4 euros a packet its worth peace of mind.
Then you place the black plastic under liner (shiny side up matt side to tyre onto the underside of the flap - there is a groove it fits into and thats it fit to the wheel.
You need to cut off any injection moulding hairs on the tyre where the flap is and ideally your rims should not be dented - which mine are and they also have clip on weights (however not a problem for these rims - bonus)
I have to say when fitting the stainless trims to the rims - they are an absolute swine to get on, the springed steel inside is very strong. Ensure you line up the cut out for the air valve then work your way out from that.
I am very pleased with the result and will check them weekly to see if any wear on the tyres or not?
website is: www.ravus.de
They are looking for a UK distributor so please contact me if your interested and I will pass on details.
Apparently I am the first UK customer to buy these for their T2?
One more thing the website is in German only but I did a Babelfish on the terms and it was fine. You do however need to send them money to their Bank account which they list, which is a little annoying rather than a Credit card setup. I had to go to my local bank and do a money transfer so consider this as the cost adds up.
If your thinking of ordering and have any questions please PM me happy to help.
They are not cheap but when you add up the flaps and rims cost here they are not that far off I think?
They also do a thinner white band and also a red version.