Date:         Wed, 9 Apr 2003 21:13:03 -0700
Reply-To:     Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Subject:      Re: How hard can you push a Westy?
In-Reply-To:  <3706B36A65176F4F8D6E73CEAB8BFC38DA9DB7@obpa7w.obpa.usda.gov>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

On 9 Apr 2003 at 15:05, Royston, Jerry wrote:

> I need some advice.  I'm thinking about going up to Newfoundland from the DC
> area and would have to travel a good 1,100 miles in 2 days to make it
> worthwhile.  Is this too much to ask of a Westy?  The most I've driven in
> one day so far has maybe been 300 miles with no problems.  Can you run a
> Westy at 65 or 70 for 8 hours a day or for that matter at 50 for 10 hours?
> I just don't want to push the van beyond its limitations.
>

Jerry,

This doesn't sound like a problem for any Westy in good repair. Although the cooling
systems tends to get a bad rap, I've found it to be fairly robust, and has plenty of
reserve capacity for long hard drives. But then, I haven't had a head leak yet either...

Although I used to do marathon runs in our Jetta, such as Vancouver - Denver
nonstop (before kids...), we try to limit our Westy adventures to more... quality time...
That said, due to either poor weather, tight schedules, or both, we've done trips like
Ashland, OR to Vancouver, BC non stop at up to 75mph (won't do this one again..)
on the I-5 (about 600 miles), and many times sections of Hwy 3 between Vancouver
and Sparwood in large 8 hour chunks at a time. Hwy 3 has a few of BC's worst
mountain passes, which gives the van a good workout (ie: 15-20 minutes of climbing
in 3rd gear at 4200rpm, sometimes even 2nd gear). Our normal load on these trips
tips the scales at around 5500-6000 lbs. The van has never even hinted that it minds
these trips at all, in fact it seems to prefer long, hard trips...

Carry spare *everything*, that way nothing will go wrong ;-)

Shawn Wright, I.T. Manager
Shawnigan Lake School
swright@SLS.bc.ca
http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright
http://www.sls.bc.ca