Date:         Tue, 28 Jan 2020 20:44:55 -0500
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: Automatic Starter options was: Front Heater Fan Motor Lube?
In-Reply-To:  <CAMOH8LKOvFAqq2KW5T=_fr31ep4piSr8o4+FyM9q5QcRF_kTdg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

> And draws about 60 amps no load, vs about 80 for the OE starter.  After
> ~300k miles of dealing with the OE starter on three different vans I'm an
> evangelist for your adapter and this starter. It cranks just like a real
> car.  I haven't proved it but I'm convinced that in moderate weather it
> will crank when system voltage is too low for the ECU to function.

I looked into both the starter GW sells (which I could have bought from their supplier) and Karl's adapter, and decided to carry Karl's adapter.  We sell it alone or with a well matched starter (linked below).  I spoke at length to the supplier of the GW starter and he was quite candid about his offering. He said it was an Asian sourced starter - usually new, sometimes rebuilt depending on availability - that his company incorporated into a proprietary housing which allowed it to bolt to a Vanagon. Because the finished product was assembled in the US it could be sold as US made even though the main component (the starter itself) was not.  The downside IMO is that their adapter is integrated into their starter, so when it fails (as all starters eventually do) you have to buy the whole thing all over again.  By comparison, once you buy Karl's adapter your Vanagon accepts a commonly found TDI starter forevermore so it's a one-time upgrade. Seemed like a smarter solution to me, so that's the way I went.  Personally my existing starter still works perfectly fine and I see no need to fix what isn't broken, but when it does fail I'll do the upgrade myself. It's kind of a no-brainer, Karl designed a better mouse trap with no downside. 

https://www.busdepot.com/SR0408XOR

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