Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 11:15:49 -0400
Reply-To: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject: Re: Spare Parts List - Input
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.1020828102718.211A-100000@grex.cyberspace.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> Current plan is to replace existing parts that seem to be fine
> with new and use the originals for spares.
>
> I personally wouldn't do this, unless you have time to drive the van
> around for a couple weeks before taking it out. You know the current
> parts are good, because the van's running on them -- why take a chance on
> a bunch of replacements you can't be sure about?
I agree, to a certain extent. You'd probably be relatively safe to replace
common tune up items, filters, etc. (and even then, drive the van for a
couple of days after doing the work). But beyond that I can't say I'd go hog
wild replacing what isn't broken.
> I think an alternator may be over-cautious... The ECU also strikes me as
overkill.
I agree. Neither is a particularly common failure item.
There is no way you can plan for every possible breakdown, and Murphy's Law
suggests that the part that fails will be the one you don't bring. Many of
the parts you're thinking of bringing are not easy roadside-repair parts
anyway, so if you need to replace them you're likely to be waylaid for a day
or so anyway. In that much time, you could have ordered the part via
next-day-air and gotten it as-needed rather than bringing a ton of "what if"
parts with you. Even on a Friday, we can usually ship a part via Express
Mail (which has 7-day delivery) and have it to you over the weekend. Only
if the breakdown happened on a Saturday (in which case you couldn't order
the part until Monday) would you be held up for more than a day or so. That
being the case, I can't say I'd fill my van with a ton of spares other than
simple stuff like a spare fuel filter or belts. Not that I wouldn't love to
sell you a van full of parts. :-)
Of course, there is always a chance that the part that fails will be
backordered or unavailable, which could be a real hassle. But the sorts of
parts you're planning to bring (wheel bearings, water pumps, etc.) are not
the sorts of parts that go on backorder very often at all. More commonly
it's obscure (low-demand) or dealer-only parts that have spotty
availability - not the sort of parts that you'd be likely to bring along
anyway.
In my personal experience, the most common failure has been in the cooling
system (i.e. a hose splitting). Since there are literally dozens of hoses,
you can't reasonably expect to bring them all with you, and there may be
some that could take a few days to get or even be backordered. Inspect the
cooling system extremely thoroughly before leaving, and preventatively
replace any soft, cracking, or remotely suspect hoses.
Also, make sure to get an AAA Plus membership. In fact, you may even want to
get a couple of different auto club memberships to play it safe. Many limit
you to a few tows a year, and if you'll be on the road for a solid year you
might want the extra security of a relatively unlimited number of tows. I
have an AAA Plus membership and a AutoVantage membership. The former allows
up to something like 80 miles of towing per incident, but is limited to 4
uses per year. The latter covers only short tows but has no useage limit (or
if it does, I've never hit it). I use the latter for short tows when
needed, and save my four AAA Plus uses for long distance tows if I'm
stranded far from home (or far from the nearest shop that's ever worked on a
Vanagon). You could even use the short-distance tow to get you off the road
to somewhere safe where you could decide your options (even to the nearest
campground), and then the longer AAA tow to get to a specialist if the
problem turned out to be something you couldn't fix yourself. This could
come in particularly useful if you broke down in the middle of the night,
where you had to get the van off the road right away but you couldn't really
assess your options until morning.
- Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot, Inc.
(215) 234-VWVW
www.busdepot.com
_____________________________________________
Toll-Free for Orders by Part # 1-866-BUS-DEPOT
|