I think the problem is fear and ignorance. I think alot of people don't know about the swap option in the first place. In the second place I think that they are afraid to try the conversion. Why? Alot of these guys are not changing the motors themselves they are going to the dealer or a mechanic and getting the work done. The dealer wants you to pay him $3000 to change out your waterboxer (one of the easiest motor pulls you will ever do -my time is under 2 hours) so he will not suggest that you do a conversion. Most owners don't know how to do a engine swap like this and are afraid of trying thinking it will be difficult or that they could not find a mechanic do to such a swap for them. Well any good mechanic that is worth his salt could do one of these conversions and so could most shade tree mechanics if they were determined enough. I just found a Diesel Vanagon in my local Junkyard today and I am definately considering doing the Waterboxer to Jetta motor swap. So the problem as to why people don't do the swap is not that it is hard or expensive or not as good, but it is more of a fear and ignorance thing and that is what we should be fighting here on this list. If we spread the word enough maybe enough owners will do the conversions to make others comfortable with it and we can get these vans on the road and be enjoying them instead of them being stuck at the dealer or giving us problems. PS Your mechanic is blowing smoke about the digijet swap being harder. I can't see how it would be since you don't use any of that stuff when you swap out the motor anyway. Ken Wilford John 3:16 |
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