Date:         Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:55:36 -0500
Reply-To:     "Jack R." <Jack007@COMCAST.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Jack R." <Jack007@COMCAST.NET>
Subject:      Car Talk, Vanagon Posting
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Found this on the www.cartalk.com <http://www.cartalk.com/> site, after
searching "Vanagon"



There were other items as well.  This one reminds me of the ethics string
last week.







January 2006



  _____



Dear Tom and Ray:



I have a 1984 VW Vanagon (yes, it does break down a lot!). Anyway, I
recently had a rebuilt engine put in it. However, the mechanic loused it up,
but tried to convince me that that was as good as those engines could get.

Not believing this, I eventually had to have another mechanic fix the
problems. The problem is that it was wired wrong and only running on three
cylinders, not four. Since that time, it's been running great (for a week!).

This morning, when starting the van, my husband looked in the rearview
mirror and noticed large flames coming out of the tailpipe. He turned the
engine off and had to use snow to put the fire out, which he was able to do.

The problem: I don't want to take the van back to the original mechanic,
even though the warranty is through him. What should I do? -- Tracy



RAY: You made a crucial mistake, Tracy. You should never have let your
husband put out the fire. That was the perfect solution!



TOM: You're in a bit of a pickle now. The first guy obviously did something
wrong. Or he put in a badly rebuilt engine. But it's hard to know now.



RAY: What you do next depends on how ethical you are.



TOM: If it were me, I'd just go back to mechanic No. 1 and tell him the car
caught fire. Don't even mention mechanic No. 2, because mechanic No. 1 will
just try to blame him, and then you'll be out of luck.



RAY: Like I said, Tracy, what you do depends on how ethical you are. If
you're more ethical than my brother or George Costanza, then you have to be
honest, even though it makes things a little messier. Here's what I'd
suggest. Go back to mechanic No. 2 and ask him to undo whatever he did and
explain what he did. Then bake some brownies, go back to mechanic No. 1 with
the brownies, and confess.



TOM: I'd fudge the story a little bit (I'd fudge the brownies, too). Tell
him it was running terribly the other day, and you thought it was going to
leave you stranded, so you stopped at the nearest garage, which happened to
be mechanic No. 2. Explain to him what mechanic No. 2 did.



RAY: Tell him that the Vanagon ran much better for a week, but then caught
fire. And in a moment of confusion, you told your husband to put it out.



TOM: Tell him that you had mechanic No. 2 undo his work, but now the Vanagon
is running terribly again, and you need him to fix it -- minus the
flamethrower option.



RAY: He may very well try to wash his hands of it. But if he's a decent guy,
he'll go back and try to figure out what's wrong. He really owes it to you
to make the thing run right. If there's a dispute about how well it should
run, borrow another Vanagon and bring it to his shop so he can see the
difference between that one and yours.



TOM: And if all else fails, Tracy ... well ... start parking near big piles
of leaves.