Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 23:27:51 -0400
Reply-To: Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject: It was a great ride . . .
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I took my '87 Westfalia into the dealer today to get it inspected, oil changed,
tires rotated and balanced, and cooling system bled. The last was because there
was some pressure buildup in the pressure tank and the coolant level was
dropping below the level of the sensor, causing the red blinky light to come
on. No overheating, mind you. Well, the van passed the inspection with flying
colors and I picked it up and headed down the highway for home. I had gotten
about two miles when I started hearing this tink, tink, tink sound. I was just
starting to wonder what it could be when there was a big boom and smoke/steam
started pouring out the rear of the van and into the van as well! I was right
at an exit, so I pulled it off the highway and coasted into a parking lot at the
bottom. I was looking around trying to find what was leaking and where when I
noticed that something looked different. The bottom end of a piston crank was
sticking up through the top of the engine!! :^(
To make a long and truly sad story a bit shorter, I had the van towed back to
the dealer. I will talk to them tomorrow and see what arrangements will be made
to remedy this, but I'm not hopeful. I keep going through this in my head and I
can't get over the feeling that the dealer screwed something up. If they didn't
bleed it correctly, could it blow up without overheating?
Here's a little run-down on my van: I bought it just over 4 years ago, with
113,000 miles on it. The automatic transmission was shot, but the engine had
been rebuilt at 111,000 miles. It now has almost 148,000 miles on it. I've
tried to do a good job of maintaining it and am surprised that this happened
with only 37,000 miles on the rebuilt engine.
This is really depressing, but I wanted to share my tale of woe with you all
because this list was so helpful to me when I first got my van and I guess
misery loves company.
Take care all,
Marc Perdue, '87 Westfalia, "Westy"
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