What exactly does cold pressure mean?

You can believe all that if you want, but you ever happen to ride in an E350 just make sure your wife knows calls a personal injury lawyer if it rollovers.

It's true that some vehicles are more rollover prone than others. But there are ways to measure rollover propensity and the E350 is at least tied for the worst one still made.

Heck, Ford does not even sell the 2009 E350 passenger van without Roll Stability Control. But we have a conversion van, a converted 2009 E350 *cargo* van without the stability control that is optional on the cargo van and standard on the passenger van.

The fatality statistics for E350s that have rear tire blowouts at highway speeds are really outrageous.

Read this but skip the sob stories and just read the parts where Ford's whistleblowers and the accident reconstruction experts are being interviewed:

"Vehicles ought to be able to slide sideways on dry, smooth pavement without rolling over. The Ford and Chrysler 15-passenger vans flunk this test."

This is a good write-up that is more technically-oriented than the 60 Minutes report:

I guess its a matter of degree as to what is and is not a design flow.

I drive them every day, Ambulaces and ambulette types. As well as the ones in my department. Take a look at the next ambulance you see. It is probably either an E350 or a GM 3500. Pretty much what gets used.

Think that they don't get driven HARD and at far above highway speeds?

BUT they are also driven by people who are TRAINED how to drive them. They slow down for corners, pay attention to curves and more.

Never had it on any that I drove. And never had a problem as long as you drive the vehicle within it's limits.

And read about how NBC and CBS RIGGED stories about GM gas tanks and other vehicle problems.

If you have such a fear of driving them then get out of the job. Simple.

If I set them to 80 cold, then they are around 84 after highway driving.

You can trim them back to 80 hot if you wish.

A lot depends upon how loaded your truck is. If it is heavily loaded but tires are not up to recommended pressure, you may encounter problems.

Unloaded, you can tolerate less pressure.

BULLSH*T....

I can roll ANY vehicle in a sideways slide on dry pavement. I have seen an Abrams tank that went over due to being cranked around hard on dry pavement.

Ever seen a race event, Think that an Indy car which will stick to the road with a LOT better grip than any passenger car ever will have won't roll? Happens all the time.

So what? I was trying to direct your attention to the substance of the stories, the wistleblowers, the accident reconstrution experts, the experts who measure and analyze how roll-over prone these vehicles are.

Who would care about the medium?

I am sure that every news outlet has made mistakes. So you always have to evaluate the actual information, not the medium.

Anyway, your resorting to this kind of stuff is an indicator that you can't handle the facts I am throwing at you.

Ford is losing in court because if info directly from Ford. It has nothing to do with NBC or CBS.

I don't fear driving them. As I said earlier, I think they have overall average safety. They have also have a design advantage: size.

I posted here in an attempt to understand how to maintain the van better. It's obvious that the safety of these vans is very sensitive to maintenance.

The ambulances probably have a different load distribution than the usual 15 passeger van. That should (1) reduce the load on the left rear tire reducing the chance of the kind of tire failure we had (2) make the load more evenly distributed making handling easier (3) reduce the oversteering problen caused by having 4 passengers seated behind the rear wheel.

My van is also safer than the old 15 passenger vans. We have a center aisle that evens out the load and our van has only has 13 seats.

Also, transit vans have a good safety record, probably because they are better maintained, newer, and have more rested drivers. The problems seem to be with poorly maintained older vans on longer hauls.

_______________

Folks it's really quite simple. Whether it's January or July when you check your tire pressures early in the morning before it's driven you want them set to 80psi(in this van's case).

My Kia optima calls for 30PSI cold. If I concerned myself with the calculations that derive that I should put in 36psi in January and 30 in July I'd probably wind up in a MENTAL HOSPITAL!!!!!

K.I.S.S:

If you go out in February and the van's tires are only 70psi and Ford specifies 80psi(coincidentally by the way the same as the tires Max pressure), you fill them up to 80psi. Ditto in July or August.

Simple!

-CC

Yep, it is as simple as it can be. cuhulin

it can't "help" if both ends float. think about it.

material contributes only part of a spring's properties - the dimensions are key also.

nope, it's their design. leaf springs have very limited lateral stability, thus if you're forced to transition from a lean in one direction to a lean in the other, like if you're avoiding an accident or trying to control the wobble cause by a flat, you can have an harmonic reinforcement of it's roll to the point where it flips. fundamental problem.

no dude, it's the design. in this day and age, there's no excuse for continuing to produce vehicles with KNOWN fundamentals like this. the only reason they still are is cost - and the fact that the auto manufacturers can show up in d.c. with a couple of brown envelopes and make all nhtsa interest in addressing this disappear.

indeed - they knew the problem, decided to proceed anyway, and pockeed the profits afforded by cheaper production costs. now they should pay.

then you've never driven one that's been properly designed. believe me, you'll NEVER roll my civic on dry pavement - i've tried and have had it sideways at 70 before now. no roll.

yeah, many tracked vehicles will do that - because despite their weight, their suspension is /really/ soft and they have no ackermann or anything that helps them track properly.

indy don't roll unless they touch something dude. man up to the facts.

Fine take it up to 100 and snap it HARD left. On good pavement with good tires it will go over.

I've been there when it has happened, they didn't touch anything, just went sideways and rolled.

If the door decal specifies 80psi and the tire sidewall max is 80psi, I would suspect someone has installed a reduced load range tire on the van. The door decal will specify a tire size which includes a letter indicating the load range. The tire will have a size in the designation on the sidewall. If the door indicates a load range "E" and someone has installed "D" load range tires, then that explains the difference. If a lower load range tire has been installed, the vehicle may not be able to safely carry the rated load (number of passengers or weight). If the load being carried is greater than the tire designation, the vehicle may not be safe to operate. You should have this checked out. Some owners will install a reduced load rated tire only for cost purposes. Vehicle manufacturers usually do not specify or install tires of any greater capacity than necessary to accommodate the load rating of the vehicle. Unless your are damn sure the vehicle will never be loaded beyond the rating of the tires, only tires meeting or exceeding the rating on the door decal should be installed.

Lugnut

If a tire blows out, who knows what will happen? cuhulin

Not necessarily; it's perfectly acceptable to have the sticker pressure the same as max tire pressure. And this is often the case when a tire is required to carry near its max capacity.

Having a "max" pressure of 80 psi does not mean the tire will blow at

As both an engineer and commerical driver, I would say a MAJORITY of

Your typical tour coach has 10,000 lbs of people riding 6 feet off the ground, with a vehicle width of only 1.5 times wider than a van. What do you think would happen if the coach driver swerves or performs a "fish hook manuver" at 75 mph? Truth is, bus drivers rarely have to do that. If 15 passenger van drivers learn to 1) not drive so fast, and

The other thing is maintenance. Safety studies discovered 57% of 15 passenger van crashes had one or more tires severely under-inflated. Is that a design flaw or driver neglegance. Since 15 pass van tires are already near their max weight capacity, any underinflation is fatal. I can gurantee that if every 15p van has its tires at 60 psi fron / 80 psi rear, blowouts will be close to none.

The sad reality is, your typical church driver or sports coach know nothing about the above, and that's why we hear these tragic stories of multiple children injured or killed in 15 pass van crashes. I'm not saying the design of these vans are perfect, or even good, but they're far from the death traps that media has led us into believing.

__________________ Of course not - GAWWWHHHHD will make sure this church van gets us there safely!!!! Knowledge of tire pressure? What's that? Remember what happened to Adam & Eve regarding knowledge? Ejoocation schmeducation - GAWWWHHDD will take care of everything!! AlleluUUUUUUUUUUjiah!!!

(LSHISMP!!)

-ChrisCoaster

no dude, they're very much death traps. while you're right that drivers have a large responsibility, the drive dynamics of these things is abysmal. no vehicle should roll just because of a blowout, and these things do. and it's not like the market into which they're being sold is populated by experienced professional drivers. if the manufacturers /know/ they're being sold to amateurs, and they do, they need to be designed [and regulated] accordingly, just like with suv's.

one more thing - comparing 15p handling to a passenger coach is a flawed analogy - the coach handles /much/ better and has /far/ superior suspension.

________________ Anyone here drive a Ford Transit or Dodge Sprinter? Just wondering how these new "Euro-merican" converts handle compared to what they replaced.

And you're right jim about the handling of Econolines and Expresses and the old B-250s. Why must a light truck handle like, well, a TRUCK? How difficult is it for GM or Ford to center up the steering better and give the things *some* feedback? I'm sure vehicles with taller suspensions probably have a different way to achieve this, so why isn't it being done?

-CC

Everything is relative. Ever been in a 135,000 lbs 7 axle tanker through the BC rockies?

Abysmal compared to what? The aforementioned Accord? Or other vehicles with similar carrying capacity?

Ever seen a steer tire blowout on a rig? Let's just say the truck does not simply jacknife, and slide to a controlled strop...

So, the problem is still the operator, to a large degree. Let's look at a vehicle that IS certified as a bus, and that IS considered safe to carry 19 children around in:

When you have 15 human lives on board, you are no longer an amateur, regardless of your profession. You are required, by ethics, to ensure that basic safety is met on the vehicle - proper tire sizes (load range E), psi (80), use of seat belts, etc.

I can only assume you've never driven a coach. The only thing better about their suspension is they're cloud soft, puts some Mercedes to shame. But because of that, they're some of the laziest handling, most irresponsive, least road feel, systems ever designed. A school bus feels like a sportscar by comparison, and that's saying a lot...

Again, I'm not saying the vans are perfect; far from it. Here's what I would change:

- requirement for lengthend wheelbase like all GM vans

- or, use of dual rear wheels

- high roof strength

But none of that would help if the driver is negligent. Put two passenger tires, at 35 psi, on the rear duals, drive 80 mph on a 100 degree Arizona highway, and what happens? Blowout and rollover just like a single wheel van.

Yes, the vans could use some improvement. But add some media hype, making the victims and their drivers look like innocent angels, while OEMs like evil monsters, and what do you get? Widespread rumour that you'll die if ever put one step into a 15 passenger van.