Date:         Wed, 19 Mar 2003 10:16:35 -0500
Reply-To:     Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject:      Re: everybody knows them to be high maintenance
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I think we've been through this a few times before.  Everybody's experience is
different.  In the 5 years that I owned my '96 Honda Civic, I spent $2,100 on
it; all of it routine maintenance, which includes tires.  To be fair, I only ran
the speedo up to about 85K miles.  With my '87 Vanagon, which I've had now for 4
years and which now has almost 140K miles on it, I had to initially plop down a
huge chunk of change on the drivetrain because of damage caused by the
inexperienced PO.  Since that time, I've spent probably about $4,000 on it,
which I think is perfectly reasonable for a vehicle that old with that many
miles on it.  The thing that bothers me most about Vanagon maintenance isn't the
amount of it that I have to do, nor the amount of money that I spend, but the
number of part failures that have been catastrophic, i.e., I weren't going
nowhere when they broke.  The only things that have ever broken in ALL of the
other vehicles that I've owned and left me stranded were things like dead
batteries, total brake failure, and dead starter/alternators.  Even when my
clutch linkage broke completely in my '59 Ford F100 truck with 226K miles on it,
I was still able to drive it to a shop to get it fixed.  The Vanagon has its own
peculiar set of problems that seem to me to be somewhat different than many
other vehicles.  On mine the things that left me completely stranded were a
distributor that worked its way loose and jumped timing (sure, if I had thought
such a thing could happen, I could have probably fixed that and been on my way),
the ECU died, and the axles broke (or rather, the studs on the ends of the
axles).  Not to say that the Vanagon is more problem prone; the fact that I've
seen very few such problems on other vehicles I've owned is more likely due to
the fact that I've owned very few vehicles (other than my truck) with such high
mileage.

BTW, in my neck of the woods, the German parts seem to me to be more expensive,
though I haven't done an item-by-item comparison.  Regularly scheduled
maintenance required per the owner's manual is almost twice as expensive for my
VWs as it is for my Hondas.  This I have done a direct comparison of.  Of
course, I've also pretty much established beyond a shadow of a doubt in my mind
that my local VW dealership's service department is anything but competent.

Yet another country heard from yet again,
Marc Perdue

Chuck Mathis wrote:

> My '95 Accord is in the shop for the second major repair in the past 12
> months.  The mileage on the Accord is the same as my '85 Westy.  Over the
> past year and a half I have spent about $900 on the VW -- new water pump,
> thermostat, brake fluid, coolant, front end alignment, front tires, new
> plugs and oil changes.  The van is low mileage at just over 70K miles.  The
> Accord V6 which is also low mileage at 72K miles has easily cost me three
> times that in less than a year -- new master cylinder, new right half shaft
> assembly (Honda doesn't replace CV boots or individual joints they do entire
> half shaft assemblies), a/c overhaul, scheduled maintenance and oil changes.
> I also spent $400 on new tires for the Honda.
>
> Low cost, dependable Hondas are a myth.
>
> Chuck
> '85 Wolfsburg Westy - 'Roland the Road Buffalo'
> '95 Honda Accord V6 - For Sale or trade for a nice Carat