Date:         Thu, 16 Jul 1998 09:42:34 -0400
Reply-To:     "John S. Cronin" <john.cronin@OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "John S. Cronin" <john.cronin@OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject:      Re: VW=On-going maintenance concern
Comments: To: Sean Bartnik <bartnik@HOTMAIL.COM>, Vanagon@VANAGON.COM
In-Reply-To:  Sean Bartnik <bartnik@HOTMAIL.COM> "Re: VW=On-going maintenance
              concern" (Jul 15,  8:52pm)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Jul 15,  8:52pm, Sean Bartnik wrote:
[well, actually, somebody else wrote this part but the name got lost]
> Subject: Re: VW=On-going maintenance concern
> >I gather that almost every Vanagon owner has other vehicles.
> >Does any Vanagon owner trust it as their ONLY vehicle (as I would be
> >doing)?
> >
> Yes!  My '81 air-cooled is my only vehicle, well except for the '74
> Karmann Ghia, but note that that's also an air-cooled Volkswagen, and it
> doesn't get driven nearly as much as the van.

My 81 Westy is my only running vehicle right now.  I have a 72 bus as
well, but it is currently being stripped for parts, so it won't be a bus
much longer (anybody need anything?).  I will probably get another VW
of some kind for a daily driver, just so I don't have to lug the Westy
tonnage around everywhere, and so I'll have something to drive (to
fetch some part I forgot) when I have the Westy partially disassembled,
which so far has always been my idea, not the Westy's.

As far as karma, I don't know, but there is SOMETHING going on.  It
may just be interaction.  Whether possessing some kind of soul, or just
mechanical/electrical/chemical reaction (the same can be said of vehicle
or humans, by the way), when a person pays attention to their VW, they
learn to listen to it, to read it, to understand it, and both human and
VW benefit - the human does not get surprised/stranded by the VW, and the
VW gets taken care of better.  So call it karma, or preventive maintenance,
or tinkering, or self-delusion, or whatever, THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON.
Bottom line is, if you want to own a VW, you need to pay attention to it
once in a while and treat it right, and it will treat you right.

--
John S. Cronin                             phone: (404) 894-6164
Office of Information Technology Operations and Engineering 0715
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
Internet: john.cronin@oit.gatech.edu