Date:         Sat, 21 Mar 2015 12:16:15 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: 2.1 L WBX Overheat -1991 Carat
In-Reply-To:  <CAHTkEuJCBTCfYTR=EKi39eJCy6jjqYAJiCHeuzm=CTLOLFdTEw@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

> See?  "Deniers"
> 
>  It does not matter how many times the subject of WBX engine reliability comes
> up, there are plenty who simply LOVE the WBX motor for some reason that I have
> never heard adequately explained.


So let me try to adequately explain it, at least from my point of view. I have never gotten less than 200k miles on a stock engine, with 1 or at most 2 head gasket replacements in between. Besides the periodic hose failure, water pump failure, etc. that can happen with any 30 year old vehicle, the engines have been generally reliable even if a bit anemic power-wise. I have no issue with the power as I am fully comfortable with the fact that I am driving a barn on wheels, not to mention that the rest of the Vanagon's handling is well matched for the stock engine. If I want to hotrod around I drive my Mini Cooper, not my Vanagon.  (And besides, it's all relative. I also have two 2-cylinder cars, a 1970 Fiat 500 and a 1973 Citroen 2CV. After driving either of them, my Westy feels positively zippy!)  

So, given that I have no particular desire to exceed stock performance, let's figure out what that will cost me over the life of the Vanagon. Over 400k miles I will have to replace the engine once and maybe do head gaskets 3-4 times. That's about $2k for the replacement engine and maybe another $2k for the heads gasket jobs assuming I have them done professionally. So $4k for 400k miles, which is likely the life of the vehicle - or about one cent per mile. At an average annual mileage of 12k a year (actually mine gets far less than that since it is no longer my daily driver and is mothballed for the winter), that means that this $4k engine investment would last me about 33 years and cost me $120/year. What would a Subaru conversion cost?

I would not claim that the stock engine is anything beyond adequate for the vehicle. But it is adequate, and sufficient for my needs.  When my engine goes I'll replace it with another of the same.

Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot, Inc.
www.busdepot.com