Date:         Mon, 29 Jul 1996 22:06:41 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         tjparker@pacificnet.net (Tim Parker)
Subject:      Was EV slap, Now electricals, HELP!

At 8:55 PM 7/28/96, Jeff DeLeeuw wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> First, I must tell you that the 93 Eurovan is the best van I've ever owned.
> It's high-torque performance is a pleasure to drive. Perhaps the best
> description I've read described it as a "highway locomotive." It is
> extremely comfortable to ride in for long distance trips and handles like it
> is on rails. I love this car.

> Good luck with your shopping. Once again, the EV is an outstanding vehicle.
> Greatly undervalued in my opinion.

EV Troopers:

While I have to agree with Jeff that the EV is a terrific van, I've still
got this funky electrical problem with my van that I've mentioned several
times before.  I either need to solve this problem, or give up on the van
and buy a Saturn (for the hot dogs, mainly).

Up until about March, this problem amounted only to my clock resetting
itself sporadically (or so I thought) without explanation.  In march, the
fuel pump failed, but the dealer had replaced it less than 1 year before,
so they didn't charge me even though the electrical system is out of basic
warranty.  Anyway, since they replaced it, I haven't complained a whole
bunch.

Since then, however, I've noticed a few things about the clock resetting
that may lead to clues.  The problem didn't occur during most long spells
of warm, dry weather.  In fact, it definitely DID happen when it either got
cold (for southern CA that has to be in the low 50's F), or, in particular,
when it rained.  Still, I couldn't get the dealer to care much about my
clock resetting.  Well, the van had been running pretty flawlessly for
about the last year and a half (minus the fuel pump failure), till we got
ready to go on vacation in Utah.  The day before we left, it started and
idled rough, and missed badly at low rpms.  I was so concerned about it
that i didn't notice when the clock reset itself again somewhere along the
line.  It ran better when it warmed up, but still missed at low rpms
somewhat.  Drove about 20 miles, stopped to pick up my wife's car from the
shop for about 10 minutes, then got back in.  Started up fine and ran fine.
No clue to what happened.  Went to Utah, and though it didn't result in
any serious problems, here's what happened:

One night we had a hell of a thunderstorm.  Next morning, we took the van
to dump the trash.  When I started it up, it struggled to get running
briefly, then quit.  This has happened before, and it usually starts fine
on the second try.  but this time I was looking at the clock when I
restarted it.  At the very instant I turned the ignition back on after it
quit the first time, the clock changed from 8:32 (or about that) to 1:00.
I wish I'd noticed before when the reset occurred.  I wonder if it happened
that way all the time?  I'll have to watch.  I always thought happened
during the night while the van sat.  I reset the clock to the correct time
and got on my way.  Anyway, that wasn't the end of this story...  went down
the street toward the dumpster.  I had to cross a big mud puddle on the way
out of the yard (not deep, and I went slowly so I didn't spash it around),
so initially the tires were pretty muddy, but I could hear when all the mud
stopped hitting the fender wells about 100 feet down the road.  About
another hundred yards we came to a T intersection with another car crossing
in front of us.  I hit the brakes, and for about 1 or 2 seconds, NOTHING
happened, then it took hold and stopped.  I wasn't going but about 20 mph
when this occurred, so it didn't get dangerous, but my wife did say "aren't
you going to stop?"  At first I just figured that the tires still had
enough mud to cause us to slide a bit, or the ABS was preventing the brakes
from locking, but now i don't think so.  Why wouldn't the front brakes have
stopped?  We went on to the dumpster, about a half mile further down the
road and tossed the trash.  When we stopped, I noticed the clock had reset
to 1:00 again, some time before I'd shut it off.  Weird, huh?

About the brakes:  I've never had a car with ABS before, and figured there
wasn't anything wrong with them when many times I first used the brakes in
the morning, even when using them very lighly, the rear brakes would
initially grab.  After that, they're fine.  Is this something alarming?

More brakes:  Also, during the spring of 95, when I had the horrendous
problems I described on the list several months ago, including what turned
out to be an open circuit in the battery, I had a scary experience with the
brakes.  The car had died completely at a four-way stop sign about 12 miles
from Bakersfield.  No idiot lights, nothing.  Completely dead.  So, to get
it out of the intersection, I pushed it backwards off to the shoulder.
There was just enough camber to the road that it didn't take much of a push
to get it moving so that I could get in and steer it off the road.  Was
going about 5mph when I got off the road and onto the shoulder and
leisurely applied the brakes.  You know how power brakes feel when the
engine's off and there is no boost?  Hard, but they'll stop, right?  Well,
I got NOTHING.  No brakes at all.  Pedal went all the way to the floor with
no resistance whatsoever.  I had to use the emergency brake to stop the
car.  I told the dealers about it, but the other problems were so
all-consuming that they either ignored it or simply didn't believe me.  In
any case, it never happened again, that is unless that's what happened in
Utah.

AT this point, I'm pretty pissed at the van again, primarily because all
the putting off or overshadowing of the electrical trouble by the other
problems has left me way beyond the electrical system warranty (van has
about 43K on it now) with what could end up costing me quite a bit of money
to get fixed (if it doesn't kill me first).

Any of you folks out there with warranty adjustment experience that might
have any suggestions as to my best approach to solving this problem?  I'm
thinking of writing a "polite" nasty letter to VWoA about it (will be my
second for this van), because my last complaint to the dealer about the
clock and fuel pump being a symptom of a more serious electrical problem
resulted in "that would take a long time and cost you a lot of money to
have us search out the cause" reply.  Pisses me off.

Wonder what a Saturn wagon with a V-6 and a 5-speed would cost me?  I could
put the 60 pickup back on the road and use it for my main hauler again...

Poised to bail,
-Tim Parker
93 EV GL
60 Singlecab
29 Model A Ford.