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Date:         Sun, 19 Mar 2000 21:51:35 -0800
Reply-To:     frank & susan malinowski <yakers@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         frank & susan malinowski <yakers@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Bunch of Questions
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I am about to get an 85 westy which will be my first VW of any sort. My questions are endless in that I probably haven't even thought of most of them yet. I've lurked a bit and read a biy but nothing like hearing from owners. Not in order of importance: Is there a good book for maintenance? I don't know if I need a shop manual as I wouldn't do any serious mechanical work myself but I would want to know when it needs to be done. Is the Bently manual overkill? I want the westy to live a long time. Next, is there a good roof rack that will hold two kayaks? I have a Yakima rack on my Taurus that works well but I do not know how difficult it would be to load kayaks on a westy and how the rack would work when putting the top up. If the rack fastens directly to the westy body then the cross pieces would have to come off to put the top up. The weight of the kayaks would be about 100-125 lbs. Is there a good way to cover the westy when not in use? There is this rather miserable, always shedding tree I would have to park it under for long periods of time. I can cover it with a plastic tarp but that can create problems with trapping moisture because it doesn't vent and the material would wear down the paint eventually from the wind moving it around. This westy has the third seat and a note posted to always have it facing forward when moving. Is that some kind of legal overkill or is there a sound engineering reason for the marking? Seems like a seat back would be even better support in a crash than a seat belt. And the Carat model has rear facing seats and no warning label. It looks like there are only two belted positions in the rear seat. Is there a way to add a third seat belt to the rear seat? I am singularly unimpressed with the air conditioning. I live in southern California and it does get 110+ here. Does anyone in inland California, Arizona or the like have anything good to say about the AC? Maybe the unit is defective on the westy I am looking at. I assume fixing AC is an expensive proposition. I intend to go to a synthetic or semi synthetic oil. Is 10w30 OK? I am open to other advice & suggestions, just wondering what kind of crazy thing I am getting into.


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