Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 22:29:27 EST
Reply-To: Oxroad@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jeff Oxroad <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: F.S. '88 Westy, 53K orig., $8,500
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
In a message dated 11/4/2004 6:41:03 PM Pacific Standard Time,
azsun99@EARTHLINK.NET writes:
> Please help me make up my mind on this.
I think CARFAX helps on a deal like this. That is unusually low mileage,
althugh I don;t mean to say it's impossible. Carfax isn't the end-all or buying a
car. Far from it. But it can be helpful. And I suppose it depends on the
state. But the cars I've bought and checked on carfax you can see a list of
inspections and what the mileage was at each inspection.
I bought a 93 VW Fox with 50K on it about 3 years ago. Before I bought it I
checked car fax and it checked out showing slow mileage increases at each
2-year state inspection.
Not that this necessarily proves anything. But if you see the car was
inspected in 98 with 110,000 miles and again in 00 with 140,000 and so on, then
inspected in 02 with 20,000 miles might be a sign the mileage isn't accurate. I
think it runs about $20 to join carfax for 6 weeks or something like that.
www.carfax.com
Of course you need the VIN number to check out the bus.
Having said that I would think just finding a Westfalia in rural AZ makes it
worth the $8500 ;)
I'm sometimes disappointed and skeptical of a person who sells a car and
cleans the engine and the like. Because that's not always the sign of great
maintainance. You could eat off my engine and it's never been steam cleaned. (
Still, I'd recommend eating at the table inside.) That steam cleaning can steam
away a lot of tell tale stains, leaks, etc.
Another thing I would say when buying a car is if the sellor says something
that doesn't quite add up it's because he's lying and not because he's getting
old. The guy I bought my bus from was a frugal son-of-a-gun and had just put
in a new car stereo. He was about 75. And I'm not saying 75 year olds can't
like music or talk radio. But it was so obvious how frugal this guy was and I
kept thinking "this guy doesn't seem like the kind of guy to be concerned about
the radio."
He had said "I put in a new radio because it didn't seem fair to sell it
without a nice system. The old one wasn't so good."
hmmmm...
But he was fine about selling it with a big burn in the floor carpet from a
hot pot which he covered with a floormat. Does that seem fair either. Why not
replace the carpet?
Anyway, this guy kept turning on the radio when I was test driving it to
show me how good it sounded. I thought, "this poor guy sure is proud of that
radio. he doesn't seem the radio type." And I'd turn it off to listen and he'd
turn it back on.
Senile. The guy's senile, I thought.
Like a fox, senile. The transmission whine he was masking with the music cost
me about $2000 the day after I bought it. ( adeal at that, but still I had
just popped the weasle on the purchase.)
The moral is if things don't add up, it's because they don't add up.
The bus has been great to me. Kyle from VolksCafe shipped me a rebuilt trans
from his spot in CA to NJ where I was and it all worked out. I'm glad I got
the bus because it was rust free and had a VW of Canada rebuilt engine just
installed (installed poorly, but installed.). and so with some tweeking and a
trans the bus has performed really well. All that was about 7 or 8 years ago. So
not all bad. But as they say buyer beware.
And finally, all the automatics I've seen have had that see through bell
housing where you can get your necktie caught on the spinning flywheel. Maybe
there's supposed to be a cover. but I've never seen one. My bus is a
manual--manual everything.
Anyway that's my 2 cents.
Good luck
Jeff
83.5 Westfalia
LA,CA
