Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 21:06:18 -0400
Reply-To: Alan Pickersgill <alanpick@MAGMA.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Alan Pickersgill <alanpick@MAGMA.CA>
Subject: Re: Winter driving in the NE. Is it worth it?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I think your body shop friend is correct that there will some damage if the
van is exposed to the salt, but it can be dramatically reduced by oil
spraying the vehicle by someone like Oil Gard, Rustcheck, or Crowne. These
are Canadian brands that work really well. Costs about $70 - 90 CAD and
really works to protect from rust. You are correct too. These machines are
meant to be used, and a few weeks of exposure to salt after proper
protection will not make much difference to the life of your vehicle.
Alan Pickersgill
Ottawa Ontario
Canada
----- Original Message -----
From: "anne dollard" <ketchikanne@YAHOO.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 8:32 PM
Subject: Winter driving in the NE. Is it worth it?
> Hello. I bought my 85 Syncro Westfalia up here in AK last November. While
the body is in GREAT shape; everything else soon fell apart. I drove it all
over the west coast last winter and ended up leaving it with a mechanic (in
Portland, Oregon) to take his time rebuilding all aspects of the van. Things
are looking really good; and I hope to get many more years out of it. Now
for my dilemma. My family is in Upstate NY...land of gobs and gobs of winter
time salt on the roads. In a perfect world I would come down and drive it
from the NW to the NE for the holidays and then proceed on down to Florida,
and back across to California for an awesome 2-3 months of cross country
travel. I was just in NY visiting(by plane) and talked with a friend who
owns a body shop. When I asked him his opinion(and my concern) about
bringing the van to Central NewYork; he was adamant that I should NOT do it.
That it would be the beginning of the end of my west coast body. Now I knew
it wouldn't be great for the van but I thought that maybe I could get away
with it with lots of washings, and maybe a protective undercoating. My body
shop friend says nothing will stop it, but this guy also feels any vehicle
you want to preserve should be kept under wraps in the winter and stored in
a controlled enviroment. Is that possible with our vehicles? Aren't they
about being used? Still I would like to give this van lots of TLC. I
appreciate it's uniqueness.
>
> I would love to hear opinions. Driving it back would make my trip so
smooth; but I would be sick if I had a rust bucket 1 year from now just
because of that one trip.
>
> Thanks
>
> Anne and her Vanagon
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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