Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 03:16:37 -0700
Reply-To: John Dagastino <themisanthropicmeanie@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Dagastino <themisanthropicmeanie@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Ford Excursion is DEAD ? (longish reply)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.44.0208011538320.6295-100000@alice>
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vanagons are a special case.
Andrew Fox <afox@cnr.colostate.edu> said:
>Right so the vanagons we have that were built in
>germany are great and all
>the american cars suck. Thats why my well-maintenced
>86 vanagon is on its 3rd set of heads, 2nd tranny,
3rd >PS rack, and numerous other replaced parts. ITs
a piece of shit.
vanagons do not have to be just well maintaned, but
babied and pampered and driven very gently to expect
any reliability. i think the people who say they get
[large number here] of miles out of their van without
any heavy duty maintenance are the ones who are
really, REALLY gentle with their vans. with maybe a
bit of verve here and there, but only a bit.
the following is a lot of opinion, but if i didn't
think it the truth, then it wouldn't be my opinion in
the first place now would it?:
the water cooled models are a hacked version of the
air cooled ones. the design of the mechanical systems
seems to be a derivative of those used in older model
rear engine air cooled volkswagens. the inside of the
engine case is almost exactly the same. (save for the
deeper oil sump and oil filter casting)
notice i said 'derivative' not 'evolution'
dare i say the vanagon's mechanical design (esp. in
the power and reliablity department) can be called a
standstill at best. not that much different from the
older busses. this is not a good thing.
try Audi, or any newer VW.
are there any other VWs that were ever as problematic
as the vanagon? if there were i don't know of them.
proof of the fact that poor judgement was used in
engineering the vanagon is the fact that some fool
thought it would be a good idea to put a rabbit diesel
engine in a vanagon and ask it to work itself to death
just to move the van.
and the syncro slider hub breakage problem can be said
to be proof that the transmission was not beefed up
enough to handle the extra load over the older bus
designs.
and the waterboxer engine is..just... stupid.
i beleive that the design might have been more
reliable had it been placed in a smaller, more
aerodynamic vehicle. the demands placed upon such a
small engine by such a large vehicle are simply too
much. this is why things break so easily. why they
decreased the displacement down from 2.0 liters as the
last of the twinkie busses to 1.9 in the vanagon
confuses me. did they want it to be weak? *puzzle*.
seems like 4 or 5 steps backwards to me.
[ shoulda put an inline-4 from something that makes
enough hp so that the engine doesn't have to labor so
hard to get moving. it escapes me as why anyone would
think putting such a small engine in the vanagon would
be a good idea. i have to wonder if they actually
drove them after they built them. ]
Such a slow vehicle could only have been acceptable in
times long passed, when the technology to build faster
and more efficient vehicles did not exist. i feel that
even at it's release date that the vanagon was
technologically obsolete.
Save for the fuel injection and power steering, barely
anything can be said to be modern about the vanagon.
the body panels of all things irk me the most. makes
it feel like a tin can. cardboard panels over an empty
wall. a design more fitting for the old
twinkie/breadloaf busses. the fact that it began life
as an air cooled automobile as late as the 1980s must
tell you that VW did not care about being up to date.
vanagons even use the same black steel wheels as the
older busses.
and converting an air cooled design to watercooling
without completely redesigning it should make anyone
nervous about reliability problems. i have read that
VW didn't want to upgrade its' factories too much in
"upgrading" to the waterboxer, but in doing so it
stuck a lot of people with a poor quality engine.
one last point is that i hate, absolutely loathe the
idea of pipes stuck to the front (or back, or
Whatever) of the engine instead of drilled passages
for coolant, this more than anything else makes the
WBX seem like a hack. instead of a hollow water
jacket, it should have been made solid and then bored
out for cylinders and coolant passages. and the head
gaskets should have a groove on both sides (with a lip
on the head to fit into the groove. oh, and if you
look closely at the top of the engine you can see the
seam where the water jackets were just 'stuck on'.
bleurgh. nasty. makes me worry that they're gonna pop
off one of these days.
it should be pretty obvious that the WBX is a
descendant of the original beetle engine design. and i
don't think that trying to take an engine that was
designed only to power a small vehicle and continuing
to use it for so many vehicles thereafter was even
remotely a good idea. they should have abandonded the
classic boxer engine design well before they did. and
either replaced it with a modern boxer. or something
else entirely.
just IMHO,
-john
oh, and one final point, having to tear the whole
blasted engine down to clean the oil screen is
absolutely insane. why they took the sump plate out of
the design is a complete mystery to me. if subaru can
have a boxer engine with an oil pan, so can VW.
*grumble*
(me dons my asbestos and titanium suit and waits for
the flames to start)
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