Date:         Fri, 9 Jun 1995 10:46:31 +0100
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         puusital@adobe.com (Paul Uusitalo)
Subject:      Re: FTC, VWOA, Head gasket problem

David Kao sez
>
>OK, so far there are only a few of you responded to my plea. I guess most
>of you do not have the problem?
>
>The number of responses is too few to support me the point that it is indeed
>a VW engineering problem. So it will be hard to finger point to VW for
>compensation for the repair. It will be up to the arbitrator to determine
>my fate.
>
>Anyway, I managed to get an estimate from a dealer today without having to
>take the engine apart. It is $2071.34 including replacement of both heads.
>I don't really like to pay this much to fix it. I'll probably exchange
>the westy's engine with the 84 vanagon and keep the vanagon for occasional
>use or sell it or use the rest of it as parts source for the westy.
>
>Thanks much for those who responded to help. Very much appreciated.


David:

I don't quite know what to make of the response here either. I was under
the impression - a few months back - that we had reached a critical mass of
Vanagon owners with this problem. Now it doesn't quite seem the case.

As I've said before, when you drive around Seattle and see just how many
Wasserboxer Vanagons are driven just like normal cars (no yearly VW Blue
only coolant changes, etc) by people who obviously don't have 2k drop for a
new set of heads it does make one wonder as to how prevalent this problem
is.

On the other hand, I know for a fact that VoA has actually repurchased
Vanagons (ok, well at least 1) from people as part of a settlement of this
acknowledged problem.

It's really to bad that VoA doesn't come clean and tell us the whole story.

Given the wide discrepancy of owner experiences and VoA responses to this
problem, my gut feeling is that somehow there were flawed engines produced
concurrently with non-flawed engines, whether from a different plant, on a
different line, or possibly even when assembled by Helmutt instead of
Dieter. Furthermore, I think it took them 'till about '87 to realize they
had a problem, and 'till about '90 to actually do anything substantial
about it (haven't heard of any head leaks from these years - yet). But I
bet by now they can look at you engine's serial # and know if it was
defective or not.

I think there are a lot of us (like me) who fear the fateful day when the
coolant starts to disappear in large quatities, or expand radically from
exhaust blow-by, or drip all over the driveway. Whether it will happen or
not, I don't know, but we definitely need to stick together on this and
keep track of our various experiences.

By the by, as you consider what to do with your engine, keep in mind that
at last notice, a factory rebuild Wasserboxer engine was going for $2380,
which (according to a posting of about a year ago) works out to around $3k
dealer installed.

Paul
puusital@adobe.com

Oh and on a really scary note, had the VW Germany website send me some
brochures on the Passat Variant Syncro and the super cool 190hp Golf VR6
Syncro (not available in the US, needless to say). The Golf brochure was in
German, but the Passat stuff was in UK English. Now here's the good part.
Buy your Passat in the UK (I'm assuming) and what warranty do you get???

"You have decided on a Volkswagen - and however many miles you drive, the
new car warranty is valid for one whole year Worldwide."

Aieeee!!!!!!!!!!!