Date:         Mon, 2 Oct 95 20:12:59 EDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         John Anderson <ja@coe.wvu.edu>
Subject:      ALL NEW WASSERBOXER HEAD INFO

Well, Ive recently come by some interesting facts for you
poor Wasserboxer people and although everything is not in, I'm going
to partially relate the story now.  First some known stuff I
have gleaned and all may not be aware of.  Our '86 (now dead,
I rolled her) had the VW recall for head bolt retorque from 22 to 27
foot pounds done at about 60,000 in '89 or so.  At the time our
service manager told me and dad there were 3 steps,
1. retorque
2. if warranted (complaints about power or obvious leakage),
remove glassbead carbon off, clean sealing surface replace
head gaskets and retorque.
3. if worse replace heads / repair engine
All of these sort of applied though at the dealers discretion
(ours went to step 2) and were sort of sketchy for 2 or 3 if
over 50,000 miles.  Dealer was trying to impress us at the time
(future EV that never occured) and did 2 even though not warranted.
He said he fought VW slightly for authorization (just asked I figure made
it sound like more than it was)

Now I know from friends that later in about '88 or '89 when this
recall was issued VW had "fixed" the problem and nothing can be
done according to new service manager.  I note the origional "fix"
as I glean from service techs was that from that time factory engines
were coming torqued to 27, that was the wonderful "fix".  I guess
the gaskets have been redesigned and modified in like '90 and again
recently but seems like '88 and '89 are generally pricked as it was
no real fix.  Now to the good stuff though.

My sister has a friend of a friend who came to this country to do
a BS in chemical engineering, said guy became a Vanagon Westy nut,
went out and with his hard earned cash bought a wonderfuly clean
'84 or '85 (I don't know round headlight though) example.  I had seen
it around town and always wondered, I mean this thing is decked out with
more accesories than certain peoples on this list, solar cells and all.
Well he bought this in like '90 or '91 with 45,000 or so on, paid a
premium price for a meticulously maintained car, expected premium
performance.  Of course the evil head leakage monster soon set in.
Now this is a 1.9 I guess so even worse, probably had never had
a coolant change in its life etc.  Well not satisfied to be taken for
a ride he bitched, first to the 800 number then more and like a good
engineer he did a lot of research.  In the interim one of the heads
cracked, now real pissed he launched a law suit in NJ against VWoA.
Somewhere along the line a tech at a dealer mentioned that the
Wasserboxer design was poor and unfounded, basically the siamesing of
water jackets about the old air cooled block and that the whole o ring
rubber head gasket scenario was unheard of in the auto world and destined to
failure, FURTHERMORE he obtained a copy of a factory (service?) manual
that recognizes the problems with the engine in print from VW when
relating info about the head torque recall.  Now truly livid he launched
a letter writing and 800 number calling frenzy while continuing the law
suit.  THE RESULTS WERE AS FOLLOWS.

VW GAVE HIME A BRAND NEW WASSERBOXER PLUS THE MONEY FOR THE INSTALLATION
ESTIMATE (he refused to do it at a dealer as all had pissed him off)
They wer initially only going to give him half the value of the engine
as it was over 50,000 and long over the 5 year limit, but because he was
able to prove the problems had started before 50,000 even though the
car was already over 5 years I believe, they settled for the whole
amount in excess of $4000 with the installation.  He simply had to sign
a release for VW saying he'd never bother em again about it.  Now I
have not talked to him and he's moving but I can get in touch with him
in about a week, the guy has all the paper work and all the information
he used in the fight and would love to share it, after I find out more,
I'll post, if anyone has specific questions they want me to ask him,
email me and I will.

Sorry I've gone on like this
John
ja@coe.wvu.edu
'78 Westy Virginia
'90 Corrado G60