Couple Questions - Long

[cwass99@rogers.com (cwass99@rogers.com)]

Hi,
     About a month ago I picked up new rims and tires for my 87 8v.  Normal VW
14 inch rims with nice wide snow tires (essential for driving in Ottawa).  I'm
wondering if the weight of the rims (they're a lot heavier than the 13 inch
stock rims) and the bigger tires would cause the 2 problems I seem to have
acquired since then.  The first is more annoying, but less frightening.  At
about 35 to 45 Kph ( 20 to 30 Mh) it's almost like the tires are seriously out
of round or something, it almost hops down the road.  Sort of like the feeling
of going over evenly spaced lumps in the road every few seconds, but not
forceful like bumps.  The scarier problem is that above about 120Kh (70 Mph)
the car feels very "floaty".  I don't seem to have any real traction problem
(confirmed yesterday when I had to stop extremely fast because of traffic,
several people around me didn't stop until shortly after tapping the cars in
front of them, I didn't even lock up the fronts).  The steering seems about
200% more sensitive and I have to adjust very frequently to stay in my lane. 
It always wants to drift.  There's no real wobble or vibration, though, other
than a teeny bit because of a passenger side motor mount that needs replacing.
     I have no idea about the lumpy low speed.  My first thought about the
"floaty" feeling and extreme steering sensitivity was maybe the wider and
bigger tires were doing it and I needed to either get used to it or adjust my
suspension to compensate.  Then I saw all the messages about losing a tire
because of rear wheel bearings and now I'm getting worried.  Am I about to join
the society of high-speed sideways people?  There's no apparent noise (tough to
tell with the Dynomax muffler...that puppy is loud ;)), but given the weird low
speed up and down thing I wonder.  Also, it doesn't always do that, I think I
have to actually maintain a speed in that range and it needs to be warmed up
(again difficult to tell, I normally accelerate pretty quickly to above 50/30).
     Thanks for any thoughts.  I might park the little beasty until I'm sure I
won't end up hurting it badly.  


Cheers,
Colin