Date:         Mon, 14 Feb 2000 16:23:17 -0800
Reply-To:     Coby Smolens <cobys@WELL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Coby Smolens <cobys@WELL.COM>
Subject:      Asbestos Resurrected
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

This is the remarkable story of another instance where non-belligerent
firmness paid--and continues to pay--off.

A German fellow we know maintained a fleet of air-cooled campers (late 70's
models - but hang in there you air-cooled Vanagon owners - this applies to
your ride as well), which he rented to vacationers.

One day, in the course of a routine exhaust system repair, he became
curious, and then alarmed, when he found what appeared to be asbestos in the
insulation of a heat exchanger. Being a safety-conscious person he called VW
and asked them if that could be the case. They denied it. Not feeling
satisfied with their response, and feeling pretty sure he knew what asbestos
looked like, he had the stuff tested by an independent lab. They confirmed
his suspicion.

He got on the phone to VW of America HQ and told them the story. A short
while later there appeared at his doorstep a knot of suited-and-tied
individuals, clearly from der Vaterland. They consisted of engineers and
legal experts fresh off the boat (OK, plane) from Wolfsburg. The meeting
they had was brief and concluded in an agreement that our friend's entire
fleet of vans (something like 20 of them) would be loaded on flatcars and
shipped to a VW dealership in the Los Angeles area, at VW's expense, there
to be fitted with ALL NEW heating and exhaust system components, from back
to front. This they did, to the letter of the agreement.

Our friend was wise - he never threatened the company with legal action. He
simply stated his case and counted on the ironclad rightness of his position
to inspire action. He told us later that he sensed that if VW had felt he
was trying to drag them down in the public view or to take economic
advantage of the situation, they would have brought the full weight of their
legal department to bear, and would have effectively buried him. As it was,
he stuck to his simple desire that they should fix the cars. They realized
that this would make him happy, at a fraction of the expense of legal
action.

What does this mean to you? Our friend is sure that VW will continue to do
this repair on an as-requested basis. It is repair work worth hundreds of
dollars, at least, and may result in repairs to other systems tangential to
the heating/exhaust system (like cylinder head replacement in the case where
the head/manifold sealing surface is too eroded to seal properly, as an
example).

This case is well documented and corroborated. Some of the introductory
documentation follows in this post. Pictures of some of the parts involved
can on my website (see below) in the form of a PDF file - look for Asbestos
Alert. The complete documentation, including laboratory test results, is
available by contacting our friend via his fax number, which is included
below.

::: Following Material Copied From Handout :::

ASBESTOS IN VOLKSWAGENS
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE OLD
VINTAGE BUGS AND BUSES...
We discovered that the heater exchange units belonging to all old
buses with air cooled engines and the heating shut-off valves of the
bugs are designed with asbestos.
See diagram for heating exchange unit number #l or #47, shut-off
valves #48, also flexible hose #14. All of these units were designed
with asbestos.
We have also found out that there are non-asbestos parts available,
however, in order to obtain these parts you must write to:
VW of America, Inc. 600 Sylvan Ave., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
We believe that it is VW’s responsibility to exchange these asbestos
units for non-asbestos units at no cost to the VW owner. As long
established owners of VW’s we have been partially successful in
obtaining these units at no cost to us.
If you would like to have additional information regarding this issue,
please feel free to FAX us at: (415) 472-2634

::: End of Copied Material :::

NOTE: Since starting writing this I went through the archives and found
what, on reflection, I knew I would find - that this issue has come up
before and that this is not news to many of you. However I feel it worth
bringing up again - there are certainly a few new members of this list since
'97 (the last thread I could find since then with "asbestos" in the subject
line), and as far as I know, VW is still doing it's thing - whether in the
guise of a "scientific survey" or whatever... Also the documentation
mentioned above is quite impressive - our buddy did a very neat, rigorous
job of documentation, including numbered color photos indexed to nicely laid
out lab test results. This stuff is available to those who wish to make use
of it, thereby, hopefully, saving folks some time. Although it may be that
this stuff is no longer necessary - VW having already established a
precedent for handling it, officially or no.

Coby

Valley Wagonworks
"Intimately acquainted with VW Vans since 1959"

Volkswagen Bus, Vanagon, Westfalia and Eurovan
Repair and Service Specialists

1535 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., San Anselmo, CA 94933
Voice:(415) 457-5628
Fax: (415) 457-0967
http://wagonworks.com
mailto:contact@wagonworks.com