Date:         Wed, 27 Dec 2006 15:41:05 -0600
Reply-To:     joel walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         joel walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: how many times have you seen the same vehicle for sale
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
              reply-type=response

> i actually like when this happens, if you keep goog records you can
> shoot an
> email to the old owner and ask them what was REALLY wrong with it.
> Vanagon
> guys are usually pretty honest, non-vanagon people on the other hand
> ...
> well, you know how this can be.  original owner tells you it burns
> 1qt of
> oil every 500 miles, new owner tells you "typical vanagon oil leak"
>
> so tell me, how many times have you seen the same vanagon up for
> sale.

nyuk nyuk. somebody else does the same as me. ;)

i keep track of the vin numbers listed in the ads, so i can be sure
it's the same
bus. so far, i think the most times the same bus has come up is four.
it started out in Reno,NV, went to New Orleans, LA, then to
Winston-Salem, NC, then last i saw of it was in Beverly, MA.

now, the funniest one was one i was involved in. i bought it from
Canton, GA (Atlanta area), "sold" it to Raleigh, NC, who sold it to a
dealer in Greensboro, NC, who sold it to someone in Boston, MA. the
price doubled over the years ... i paid $7000 for it, and it was
listed in Boston at $14,500. the dealer in Greensboro listed it three
times ...$11,600 ... $11,900 ... $14,700!!!

but the thing that is interesting is when a bus, usually a camper, is
for sale on the east coast or in florida and then disappears only to
reappear in nevada or colorado with LESS miles and 'no problems at
all' or "california car - no rust!". :)

unca joel
who gives out free VIN readings if you wanna know where your bus's
siblings are. ;)
all i need is the VIN, model (GL, Camper GL, Syncro GL, etc), color,
transmission type,
miles on the odo (if known to be correct),
city/state/province/country, and what type of engine you have in it.
and any other stuff like "i added a Lenox gas furnace in the luggage
rack to keep warm in those Florida winters". :)
so far, i've got a sequence of three VINs together ... hoping for
longer sequences in the future (i want to find out how many buses were
built in the same color/transmission/model at the factory. it seems,
from the data so far, that they would run strings of syncros together
... so it seems reasonable that other models would be built in
sequences as well. the TriStars also seem to be clustered in one
little group of VINs).