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Date:         Tue, 30 Jul 2002 22:33:40 -0500
Reply-To:     Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Subject:      Re: Splitty love story NVC
Comments: To: gull@CYBERSPACE.ORG
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Great, now I understand. You need a stable of parts VW Vanagons or cars to keep one or two other vehicles running. Your parents did the right thing with their 85 Crown Victoria, got rid of it, instead of buying several 85 Crown Vics as parts cars. That is the way the real world works. There are always stories of extraordinary dependable vehicles and stories of lemons. I've had my share of both and you don't want to hear the stories. I have friends that live on a farm and they can't ever seem to sell off, trade in or discard an old vehicle. They live in a very nice home with beautiful gardens and their reserve collection of old vehicles just really junks up the place. As far as holding cars for parts, I've never needed a part for my 83 Air Cooled Westy that I couldn't find at a fair price from a list vendor, list member, E-bay or one of several wrecking yards. I can't even imagine insuring and getting six or more vehicles inspected and licensed. I ran a fleet of 10+ trucks in a construction company that I owned for twenty years and about once a month we had maintenance day and everybody but the secretary changed oil, swept out trucks, washed trucks and just performed general small jobs on the vehicles. The secretary was the parts runner. If we had a problematic vehicle we replaced it.

Stan Wilder 83 Air Cooled Westfalia

On Tue, 30 Jul 2002 22:49:24 -0400 David Brodbeck <gull@CYBERSPACE.ORG> writes: > On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, Stan Wilder wrote: > > > I'm certainly glad that it is you and not me with that fleet of > money > > suckers. > > I'm envisioning a wire cage in your two car garage with a sign on > the > > shelf of the split door that says parts department. > > I'm visualizing the wire basket that is labeled *waiting for > parts*. > > What ever possess a person to collect a fleet of *known to be > > problematic* vehicles ? > > Part of the trick is, if you have enough of them from roughly the > same > era, you can always make the one you want to drive work by > cannibalizing > parts from the other ones. ;) They used to follow this same theory > at the > college I went to, with a "known to be problematic" model of Sun > computer workstation. > > Incidentally, all cars are "known to be problematic" after they > reach a > certain age. My parents' 1985 Crown Victoria was getting pretty > problematic by the time we got rid of it around 1993. I've known > people > who had VWs that had a much longer trouble-free lifespan than eight > years. > > > _ _ > __ _ _ _| | | | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE) > Ypsilanti, MI > / _` | | | | | | > +----------------------------------------------------- > | (_| | |_| | | | @ cyberspace.org > \__, |\__,_|_|_| "Geekdom is fantastic at being AGAINST something, > and > |___/ it's hopeless at being FOR something." > -- Andrew Orlowski in The > Register. >

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