Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 07:53:37 EST
Reply-To: KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Vanagon structure
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Steve thanks for sharing these pics. Man what some people won't do to try
and replace their front blower motor without removing the dash :)
My thoughts as to why there are nice Vanagons in the junkyard is that folks
do give up on them all the time. I have that 7 passenger 84 GL that I
offered up for sale the other day with only 50k miles on it. I got no
responses from the list on that van. Why? Because it is only a 7 passenger
and it needs some work. People don't want 7 passenger Vanagons (they are
hard to sell, believe me I know!) and when you do sell them they don't bring
good prices. So folks wind up parting them out instead of putting them back
on the road (more profitable if you have the space to store them).
The other thing I see alot of is the "make-it or break-it" mind set when it
comes to Vanagon maintenance. People will have a van and when it gets some
miles on it they start having problems. They take the van to a local shop
that doesn't know what they are doing and charges them an arm and a leg.
Next thing you know they have a couple thousand dollars wrapped up in their
van in exhaust system, brake work, etc and the head gasket goes bad or the
transmission messes up. Instead of realizing that they should fix this
problem since the van is almost totally refurbished, they suddenly decide to
sell the van for nothing just to "get rid of it" (the wife usually says this
last part:).
I have bought several Vanagons this way and it is a great deal for me, but I
really hate this mentality. I would rather stay with a van that I knew, and
with problems that I knew, then sell something I have already invested alot
of time and money in getting the bugs out of, and get something else
supposedly "more reliable" that is going to have a whole new set of bugs,
potentially just as bad if not worse.
Sorry for the preaching. Have to keep reminding myself to wait for Sunday:)
Thanks,
Ken Wilford
http://www.vanagain.com
John 3:16
Office (856)-765-1583
Shop (856)-327-0027
Fax (856)-327-2242
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