Date:         Fri, 07 Apr 95 09:03:01 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: 85 Vanagon starts hard

On Fri, 7 Apr 95 08:31:47 CDT Terry Tan said:
>It is sad that a beautiful and functional vehicle like the Vanagon should
>have been plagued with so much problems. Wonder what happened to those
>VW experts during the beetle days.

amen. i don't think it is so much the experts or designers, but the lack of
dealer training and support ... it doesn't matter how well it's designed if
the service isn't done correctly.

>The dealerships are mostly equipped to replaced the bad parts. They really
>dont have the time or desire to find out why the repair was needed.

my point exactly. without this information coming back from the dealer, vw
has no way of knowing there is a problem to solve.

>My worst problem is the hydraulic clutch system and leaking pushrod tubes.
>        1st clutch replaced at 20K miles
>        2nd clutch replaced at 32K miles
>        3rd clutch replaced at 43K miles
>All these work was done at a dealership with no reimbursement from vw
>Clutches it seems are not covered by warranty. They think its the way we
>drive that is causing this problem. All that bull just to avoid having to
>admit that there is a fault somewhere.

i think you got a rotten repair job ... my clutch also screwed up at about
20k miles ... it was the throw-out bearing, but the repair was done correctly
and i know have 85,000 miles on the car with no more clutch trouble. well,
except that the clutch slave cylinder finally died last month. actually, it
didn't "die", it just started leaking a bit.

>vehicle will shift smoothly when cold but when riding for
>say half an hour or so it gets difficult to shift the gears. This is
>an indication that somewhere in the hydraulics some kind of expansion has
>occurred reducing the clutch travel.

this could also very well be your shift linkage badly misadjusted. or just
maybe the wrong transmission oil: too thin. from what i was told, the syncros
in the transmission need a certain amount of friction from the oil in order
to work correctly. too thick, and it won't shift right. too thin, and it still
won't shift right.

joel