if you are on the yahoo spare list you can look much of this up in the archives. the discussion started on list and lucas jumped in when i relayed my experience. then when i started posting pictures to support my claims he would respond off list then, send personal emails back to the list i think speaks to his general character but that is my personal opinion. so without further delay here is an excerpt straight from the horses mouth.

----------------- Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 22:10:33 -0800 From: S. Lucas Valdes - Go Westy! <lucas@gowesty.com> To: Jonathan Farrugia <jfarrugi@umich.edu> Subject: Re: [vanagon] Re: Sources for waterboxers

"The broken valve adjustment screw you experiences is a first. This just has not happened EVER. We had one intake valve snap right off at the keeper groove upon start-up once. Go figure, brand new German, TRW valve.... With two engines a day going out, shit is bound to happen. Overall our track record is excellent. We have had very few failures, and our engines are getting better every day." -----------------

as far as them never paying for it that is what the customer told me and i only have his word to go on since gowesty would never tell me whether they reimbursed the customer. so basically "shit is bound to happen" and your bound to fix it at your cost since your thousands of miles away.

jonathan

On Mon, 10 Apr 2006, honemastert wrote:

> On 4/10/06, Jonathan Farrugia <jfarrugi@umich.edu> wrote: > > Jon, > >> Tim >> >> i find it amusing about the issue with the valve adjusting screws you >> mentioned. that cost several hours of billable time on the gowesty engine >> given that it failed 50 miles from home. gowesty told me that they had >> never heard of such a problem and refused to compensate the customer from >> what the customer told me. > > > This is b.s. of they didnt compensate them.. when did > this happen? (i.e. how many years ago or was it just > recently) If it was several years ago, I might see the > point, but when I brought the issue up, they were straight > with me, apologized, sent me a batch of new screws and > valve cover gaskets and also gave me store credit for > the amount of $$ that I had to shell out to get a local > shop to fix it. I did one of them myself, but the other > two times it happened to me, I couldnt get the > screw out without removing the whole rocker arm > assy. so I had a local shop do it for me (approx > $50-$75 depending upon what else I had them do) > cant remember. > > Havent had the issue since (knock on wood) and it > was only on the l.h. side of the engine (viewed from > the rear) > >> everone makes mistakes and experiences part failures. how they stand >> behind their product is how i measure them. > > exactly.. again, what was the timeframe, recently? > > I know they were having a heck of a time getting > screws that wouldnt fracture. In fact, they were sending > them back out for rehardening/testing, which showed me > they sincerely wanted to address the problem, but > denying it is not right, unless they completely fixed > the issue. > > -tim > > >