Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 11:57:11 -0500
Reply-To: Tom Buese <tantonbz@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Tom Buese <tantonbz@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Friday Philosophy: On Previous Owners
In-Reply-To: <1359129603.22524.YahooMailClassic@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
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I have now owned Detlef, our 84 Westy since August of 2002. I bought it
from the original owner who bought it new in October of 1983. He put
38,500 miles on it in almost 19 years & kept it in pristine condition, so
much so, that when we were the 1st potential buyer to arrive to check it
out in Sandy, Utah, he would not let us drive it, but would take us for a
ride & tell us anything we wanted to know about it. Well, he did, we
didn't quibble on the $8k he was asking for it, & it was ours! Since this
was on a Saturday & I needed to go to my bank to get the $ to pay for it, I
told him we would come back on Monday w/ the rest of the balance due, & he
said no deposit needed, so on Monday we paid him & drove off after his
parting words- "don't follow to closely behind other vehicles"! Of course
the westy came w/ all receipts for all work done, all by the original VW
Dealer, the orginal warranty for the clear coat sealer & undercoating, a
porta potty, VW trailer hitch, etc. The German gent's 1st name was Detlef,
so we named the Westy that in honor of him.
YMMV,
Mr. BZ-have since put over 120k miles on it, & it runs great on the
original engine.
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@yahoo.com>wrote:
> We bought our '87 Westy from an owner we had the pleasure of meeting. She
> was an adoption professional for a nearby county and vetted us thoroughly
> to make sure we were suitable new owners for her "Max." She passed along
> all the receipts that she and the original owner had collected. In
> addition, there were notes and traces of work by her notorious Brother Bob,
> who troubleshot and tweaked a lot of the van's teething problems. Air
> conditioning seemed particularly pesky.
>
> Early on during our first camping trip to Virginia Beach I tried to
> contact the original owner and we played phone tag but never caught up with
> each other. Both OO and PO were very diligent about service and about
> keeping receipts so we feel very lucky to have found this van. We do not
> call it Max, though, we just call it the camper. The PO's most recent
> comment on that was, "Well, Max knows his name even if you don't."
>
> Stephen
>
> --- On Fri, 1/25/13, Jarrett Kupcinski <kupcinski@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> From: Jarrett Kupcinski <kupcinski@GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Friday Philosophy: On Previous Owners
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Date: Friday, January 25, 2013, 8:02 AM
>
> I am coming up on six years of Vanagon ownership in March of this year.
> Olly came to me by way of a dealership in Colorado. Before that he lived
> for a bit in the Pacific Northwest, but he began life in Texas like so many
> German immigrants. I take some measure of joy in the fact that I’ve brought
> him back “home.” Vans are
> rare in these parts.
>
> I know all of this because of a CarFax report and some receipts I found in
> the van, but otherwise the previous owners are a mystery to me. I don’t
> know the names of these vanagonauts or the roads they travelled in Olly.
> I’d like to think that some of the longtime van owners out there passed
> Olly and exchanged a Vanagon wave during his 145,000 previous-to-me miles,
> but that’s purely fantasy.
>
> What I do know is that Olly has been both loved and neglected. For the
> most part he came to me blessedly stock, although less than fully
> functional. I say “blessedly” not because I believe that a stock van is
> inherently better, but because it made learning about the ins and outs of
> Vanagons a lot easier in a place where there are few references other than
> Bentley and the list. Electrical gremlins are much easier to exorcize when
> the diagrams approximate reality.
>
> That being said, there are signs-a-plenty that Olly
> has been captained by others. Patched metal, taped wires, jumped
> connections, POR-15’d spots, and stripped non-metric bolts point to both
> care and neglect. Most often I curse the previous owner’s bone-headedness,
> like when I find that BOTH the front door wiring harnesses were snipped
> instead of being disconnected properly just a few inches further under the
> dash.
>
> It’s frustrating to stumble across such examples the PO’s handiwork while
> I’m in the middle of fixing something else, but lately I’ve been trying to
> view these scars as talismans. That the repairs were done at all is an
> indication that someone, somewhere along the way wanted to keep this van on
> the road a little longer. That those folks cared about this van, even if
> they lacked expertise or proper tools. Many vans are not so lucky. Mine
> was, and so it has to come to me.
>
> For that I am grateful.
>
> So I here’s to you, all you previous owners, for your stubbornness
> that kept the four wheels rolling even when you had no business trying.
> For your bravery in owning a Vanagon at all. And for your wisdom to pass
> the van (and the mess you made) on to someone else when the time came. I
> thank you.
>
> Jarrett K
> Olly, 89 Westy powered by Bostig somewhere in Texas
>
--
Tom Buese
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