I am the original owner of a '90 Westy with 129k miles. The only time it let me down on the road was on a gravel road when a small rock was thrown into the power steering belt and knocked it off the pulley. I always carry spares and replaced it and was on my way. I drive very conservatively, 60-65mph, depending on whether I have a tail or head wind. It has never done anything that it shouldn't do, i.e. not start, not idle right, etc. I take that back, it did have the intermittent hesitation at highway speed, but that was fixed long ago with the VW harness fix. I frequently, throughout the Western U.S., take "the road less traveled" and I don't WANT to break down in the middle of nowhere, so I practice pro-active and preventative maintenance, something I also learned working in a very large computer room where downtime costs $$$ and the phones light up like a Christmas tree.

It also helps that I have owned it since new and been able to do this. Nothing here says I haven't had problems, I just "head 'um off at the pass"!

Jerry ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Fox" <afox@USGS.GOV> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM> Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 10:02 AM Subject: Re: How fast should a 1.9L go??

> Hi all, > Does anyone know if there is a relationship between the usual highway speed > a vanagon owner drives at and the length of time between head gasket > failures or other major engine problems? I've heard some list members > mention that they have gotten 200,000+ miles out of a wasserboxer w/ no > problems. Are these the same drivers that refuse to push their vanagons > over 4000 RPM? Would some of the listmembers with impeccably good engine > reliability please comment on their driving habits? > > Andrew > 86 GL >