Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 12:28:03 -0700
Reply-To: gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Saga of the missing oil
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Jeff,
I did a trip up to Seattle from san francisco and
going up I used hardly any oil but coming home I found
I was down a quart. I think there are two variables
that can alter oil consumption that affect my 87
vanagon. Any speed over 60mph and heavy
mountain,hill traveling. The two variables together
are synergistic. Driving on level ground at speed
55mph or below I use no oil between 3k oil changes.
Busting my fanny getting home from Seattle used a
quart of oil. I think checking the oil between gas
fillup is a prudent thing to do when you are driving
fast and or driving in the mountains.
gary
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 00:05:34 -0500
From: Jeff Palmer <jpalmer@MTS.NET>
Subject: Saga of the missing oil was Re: Dipstick
readability tip
(getting
kinda long)
Well, I was going to wait for the Friday Funnies for
this mystery but
since
it came up today I might as well get a head start. I
should mention
that
I've always had trouble reading the dipstick - higher
on top, lower on
the
bottom, the whole thing seems to be wet, etc. Could
be part of my
problem
here but who knows.
So I'm taking my 85 Westfalia GL from Winnipeg to
Vancouver to San
Francisco
this summer and back. 250k kilometres on the original
motor and
automatic
transmission. No oil leaks or burning oil or anything
like that.
Getting
pretty low on power but hey I'm not in a hurry.
I take it to one of the few VW dealers in Vancouver
who would look at
the
van without an appointment. Some were downright
ornery about the whole
thing. I'm off to San Fran with fresh oil and
everything seems to be
fine.
Checked the oil every two fills and never needed to
add (unless I'm
reading
it wrong, but I don't think so).
Coming home near Glacier Nat. Park in Montana the
motor starts rattling
and
I lose power. The next 3 hours I'm going up hills at
5 mph until I hit
Alberta where things flatten out and I can putt along
at 70km/h. It
sounded
like an exhaust rattle which made sense to me because
I knocked it
around a
bit on some particularly nasty potholes on Vancouver
Island. Wasn't
sure
why it would cause me to lose power though.
So I make it to the VW dealer in Lethbridge Alberta
where they tell me
I was
down about three or four litres of oil! How about
that. The oil
warning
light never came on, although it lights up when
starting the motor so I
guess the sender must be toast. They assumed I had
some sort of
catastrophic leak so I pick up four litres of 20/50 at
Canadian Tire
and
stop every 20 minutes on the way home. Even decided
to bypass Ikea in
Calgary it was so serious. So I drive 1600 km home
from Calgary, and
the
oil level on the dipstick never dropped. I still
haven't had to add
any
oil.
Where did my oil go? I have to admit I didn't check
it from San Fran
to
Montana where I lost power. The van seems to be
running fine now -
still
sluggish but not consuming any oil. How much damage
did I do? I
didn't
realise you run out of power when you run out of oil.
Obviously I'm
not the
most mechanically inclined guy out there but I'm
pretty conscientious
about
maintenance and I feel like a big idiot for running
out of oil.
Anything in
particular I should do now or just start saving for
the new motor?
This one
sure didn't owe me anything with that many miles and
one head failure
repaired at 80k km, but I would like to squeeze
another few miles out
of it
if possible.
Darn.
Jeff
85 Westfalia
Winnipeg
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