Date:         Wed, 19 Oct 94 23:35:26 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "J. Walker" <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: leaking head gasket

On Wed, 19 Oct 94 22:11:38 CDT Will Self said:
>I asked my local mechanic about it and he suggested retorquing the
>head gaskets.  He checked it out and said yes, there is a very tiny leak, so
>he did the retorquing.  This is an idea someone may wish to consider.

if i remember rightly, there was a recall for re-torquing the heads on the
early (83? 84?) model vanagons with water-cooled engines. maybe they get
loose again?

>He also insists that VW coolant is no better than other coolant, that
>nowadays all coolant is designed to be tolerated by aluminum parts.  So
>I'm not sure what to believe in that area.

if it were just vw saying it, i would be pretty skeptical myself. BUT ...
it happened to a friend with a toyota truck. he said that toyota said to
use only their phosphate-free coolant, but he didn't believe it and used
prestone instead. his head gasket leaked and kinda dissolved and clogged
up his radiator. he was very surprised about the vw engines and the phosphate
info and, since it seemed to be almost identical (what happened to his
truck engine) to what was happening to the vw bus engines, he was convinced
that (phosphate in his anti-freeze) was what messed up his engine. he drives
the truck about 40,000 miles a year, so it would likely 'wear out' the
coolant pretty quick. he got the head gasket and radiator fixed and now uses
only the toyota stuff.

when i was silly enough to buy a mercedes last year, i noticed that they (MB)
also were very adamant about using phosphate-free coolant in their engines.

so i'm not quite so skeptical as i might be. i think i am NOT hurting my
engine (just my wallet!) by using the vw stuff. but i can't say that anyone
who uses other stuff IS hurting their engine. i just don't know.

what i THINK is that maybe the vw stuff will last two years, and the prestone
stuff will last only one year, before it NEEDS to be replaced. if the guy
from BASF <the folks who make Zerex and the vw stuff (and who make something
called Zerex Extreme, a new non-phosphate coolant)> was right, the key here
is to REPLACE the coolant regularly, like every other year or even every year.

it kinda makes sense: if you change your oil to get rid of crud and acids
and renew its lubricating ability, then why not do the same to all the fluids
in your car? we know you need to replace brake fluid, right? so why not the
coolant? especially since the current engines are smaller, run hotter, and
have more 'exotic' metals in them (than the old solid-iron big-mutha engines
of the 40's and 50's).

so that's what i think.

joel