Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 15:26:05 -0500
Reply-To: John Anderson <jander14@WVU.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Anderson <jander14@WVU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Wasserboxer reliability
In-Reply-To: <38CE26A7.7C00F3B3@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Can I take this thing across the country without worrying about breaking
>down or not? I love my van but I need to know will I always love it as a
>hobby or can it be a reliable traveler?
Man this is a loaded question, can you take any '85 car across country
without worrying about the exact same kind of things? I mean I'd never
drive across country in anything without having removed, inspected,
repacked or replaced all 4 CV's as you mention. Is the compression
good, does it use oil, how does the engine look in general? A big one
have you replaced all the coolant hoses? Probably answer no to that one
and you'd do it on any regular ole '85 car, just costs so much more on
a Vanagon. I'd put my old '85 up against any '85 Honda, Toyota, whatever
you have out there, as I'd done the heads, CV's, had changed the brake fluid,
trusted the brakes, changed the tranny oil and saw nothing suspicious,
replaced all the FI hose everywhere, tuned it, had a fair supply of common
spares I thought I might need (FI, CV, etc) in the car at any time on a trip.
I bought that van for $500, put $500 into it and put over 25k on it without
doing anything but reular maintainence. Drove it on more than a few 1000
mile trips. Never did do the coolant hoses, cost too much for me. You've
got to make trades, when it comes to Vanagons though you got some
major things working against you, not inherent to the vehicle so much as
to what it is. The design is a bit complex giving long coolant, PS, etc
lines.
Not a lot of people work on them, and even people who work on air cooled
flat 4's can't always be trusted to work on waterboxers, neither for that
matter
can most dealers, plus there aren't many VW dealers in the heartland any
more. Next parts availability simply isn't. If you break down in nowhere,
KS,
on a hot summer day, after being towed to Jim Bob's (no offense to anyone
out there, WV would be just as bad where I am) you aren't going to get parts
from NAPA, from the dealer, from anyone really. There isn't going to be a
'83 to '85 Vanagon in the junkyard, there isn't going to be anyone who knows
how to work on the thing. I wouldn't worry it a bit, but I carry a full
complement
of tools and am pretty much ready to do anything short of rebuilding the
engine or tranny anywhere anytime myself if I got to. Bus Depot or whoever
could probably have you most parts in a few days or so. If you don't do you
own work, a lot might be said as to it not being a good idea to own an ageing
(and they all are) Vanagon period. I find even the waterboxers to be
reasonably
simply, reasonably reliable vehicles, but a 15 year old car is a 15 year
old car.
If you haven't done all the regular things you should do when you buy
a used car (change, oil, tranny oil, brake fluid, coolant, repack CV's,
dissasemble
and repack front wheel bearings, inspect all brakes, etc.) and the thing
fails you
in the middle of nowhere, it's pretty tough to blame the 15 year old car.
If it
were a Chevy Celebrity, sure you just go to Jim Bob's and say fix it and hand
em your credit card, if it's a Vanagon you've got a lot more difficulty. From
a purely personal standpoint, the aircooled's might be a hare more reliable.
The engines are good for about the same length of time (seat recession versus
head gasket leak), and they have no PS, no A/C, 091 trannies not the 091/1,
a lot less to go wrong. They have their own host of problems for being a few
years older though. Regardless either way, depsite all the hoopla about
Japanese quality, any "japanese" car built in the US is of basically US
quality (as is any non German built VW) and there are plenty of '85 Vanagons
running around out there now with 250k on them just like those Honda's and
whatever. Taking either on an extensive cross country trip without proper
preparation is asking for trouble, though you might get the Honda serviced
a lot easier. Something you do have going for you?, check out the AIRS site
on www.type2.com a lot of good people have their names, email addresses,
and phone numbers there, and a lot of them would even help a guy in a
waterboxer. If someone broke down near and called me, I'd pretty much do
anything in my power to fix their problem, and could rec a sensible garage
if I couldn't, and there are tons of people nice than me on that list.
John
jander14@wvu.edu
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