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Date:         Sun, 11 Jun 1995 11:50:26 CST6CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Dan Houg" <fairwind@northernnet.com>
Subject:      Wild West Westy trip Report

First off, i'm sad to say that we missed dave S. and his GNATT// Black Hills Rendevous by a day as we ended up leaving on Friday, instead of Thurs. Rats. My wife, who spoke to dave on the phone, said he sounded 'really nice' and wanted to meet up with him... you ol' charmer you, Schwarze!

Anyway, a brief account of Life in a Westy. While we've camped in a weekender version before, our family had not used a full Westy and all its stuff. In short, it would be a fantastic way to travel for 2 people. with 2 adults and 2 (young) kids it gets small but very managable. I got sorta anal-retnetive about keeping stuff in its place for better or worse but it does help keep the interior from becoming a sea of clothes and food stuff.

the Fridge: the fridge is great but a few negative comments. in really hot weather ie 80 degrees outside, 90+ inside, it would warm up to the high 40's in the fridge, even with thge interior fan running. However, the recovery really wan't all that bad and i never felt the food was in too much danger as we kept only a 2 day supply of perishables in there. when under way, the fridge blew out a few times but always re-lit easily.

HINT: when traveling in hot areas, run both the gas AND 12v for the cooling power... wow does that bring the temps down! I s'pose it has some dire consequence to the fridge life but it sure worked nice!

I don't know how much propane is left after 11 days but it amazed me that we could cook and fridge without filling up.

the Stove: i like it. made stir-fry for 9 on it one night! I modified the grate over it so that real small pots (ie the essential coffee) doesn't tip into the hole over the burner. the stove also heats the interior nicely :) one observation... the heat shield and the rubber gasket get very hot if the van is parked so that the passenger side is lower than the drivers side... the heat rises diagonally with respect to the surface and got stuff hot that wasn't meeant to be.

the Sink: i initially thought those Westy sinks were 'stupid' and useless, like our vestigial gills. they are great! they are super for cleaning up kids when on the road (just let the water drain!!!) and one can actually do dishes easily if you carry another washbasin and use the sink for rinsing. one bad thing: the water faucet is nearly impossible to turn off with wet/soapy hands. maybe ours is extra stiff but that knob needs a lever or a deeply indented grip.

the Table and Storage: the swing-away table is nicer to use than the weekender 'lift-up' version cause it seems we would always have junk in front of the area used to lift up the weekender table. storage is ok. we used a big Rubbermaid container for keeping food in and stored all the eating/cooking untensils in various compartments. this seemed to work well.

The van ran flawlessly except for a bout of engine missing 30 miles into the trip! As Joel and Jerry have explained, this is normal behavior as the van is simply letting its 'owner' [hah!] know who REALLY is in control. I smiled when this happened, patted the dash lovingly, and expressed a few words appreciation for the effort it was about to put forth. It immediately settled down and ran without further fuss. We frequently got 19.7 mpg in a mix of 70-75 mph freeway driving and mountains. Lower mileage was also seen when bucking strong headwinds. Power was uh, adequate, with the Hills having slow lanes when needed. Second gear was seen up a few roads and third was used most the time in the mountains. Oil consumption was maybe 1/2 quart or less for the 2000 or so miles.

All this in a van with 166,000 miles...

oh. one more thing... all pre-vanagon buses waved, about 50% of the vanagons, and 0 of 2 Eurovans.

-dan


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