Date:         Fri, 19 Nov 1999 19:51:10 EST
Reply-To:     Sackscot@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Scott Sackin <Sackscot@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Thanx Beetle Barn, Las Vegas, KW and the list
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I just wanted to thank the great people at Beetle Barn (especially Juston...Meister mechanic) and Ken Wilford and the others on the list that lended their support to help me out with my 84 Westy in So. Utah (Re: Help in So Utah ASAP). <Br>

If you've got some time read on about my two chance encounters with this shop. (long winded story)<br>

This is the second time Beetle Barn (and Juston - a mechanic there) came to the rescue for me.  The last time was about a year ago, and I was changing jobs and moving from Ventura, CA to Fredericksburg, VA (boy what a change!)  I had spent the night in Las Vegas on the way and had a valet parked my car at the Flamingo.  The valet evidently wasn't aware that 'R' could be located pushed down to the left and up (manual trans) vice ....well you know. Needless to say, when I got my westy back from the valet, I no longer had to push down for reverse.....but I did have to pull up for first thru fourth. :(<BR>

Not exactly the way I had planned to have my gearing oriented for the drive across country.  After some haggling with the Flamingo Managers, I was able to convince them to dig DEEP into their pockets and foot the repair ($150 or so....really the repair was $100, but I had them do a once over and tack that to the bill).  Not knowing LV, I pulled out the proverbial yellow pages and let my fingers do the walking. After ***surprisingly*** having no luck with the VW dealer, I scanned all the auto repair ads looking for the true "VW" shop.  I came across a funky ad by a place named 'Beetle Barn'.  I called them and explained the problem....they knew exactly what it was (balljoint spring shifting mechanism) and had the part in stock!  And they could do the repair that day! I was shocked!  <Br><br>

Juston the mechanic I dealt with, who drove a westy himself, knew volumes more than any of the 'German Meisters' I had taken my Westy to back in Ventura...and he wasn't even German...i don't think....but he was very informative and thorough. Although I didn't want to be broken down in Las Vegas, I thought it must have been somekind of good Karma thing that led me to this shop.  I ended up really enjoying the experience ...learning about intricacies of the westy.  He showed me a few things I needed to be aware of like...the German Meister back in Ventura had installed the wrong O2 sensor causing the ECU to read the wrong info...but Juston said just to change it when I get a chance in the future....no big impact....no push repair.  I really like the shop, which also had about 2 or 3 other Vanagons on different lifts when I was there (good size shop).  I felt like I was in good company.  I decided to hang on to their souveneir shop key change they gave me.......just in case somet!
hing happened again......
<br><br>

Well, a couple of weeks ago I loaned my 84 westy to a buddy and his fiance to take a celebratory "finished her masters" trip across country.  I wanted to share the Westfalia euphoria with them so I offered up the westy for their trip....they jumped at the chance. I got a call last Saturday from them, saying how great the trip was and how awesome the westy is. THEN I got a call the next morning, Sunday,....I said "What's wrong?!"...sure enough they were in Zion Natl Park and having shifting problems.....ON SUNDAY...IN UTAH!<br><br>
This time I got to play home base support for my westy. (This must be like having a sick child off at college for the first time) After much reading on the web and consulting with Ken Wilford of vanagain.com, we were fairly sure it wasn't the transmission, but didn't think it was the clutch either....more like the slave or master cylinder.  Well, Monday come morning it shifted ok, but they took it to the 'German Meister' shop anyway....ya know...MZ, Porsche, VW, etc... in St George anyway....they said it must be the teflon bushing on the shifter.."just deal with it until you get back home".  They left...problem came back.  Visit #2 with the German Meister shop in St George - "It must be the clutch - $800."  Well, having just bought a house, I wasn't financially prepared for shotgun trouble shooting :) So, I dug out my old key chain and called Juston at Beetle Barn in LV.  He remembered me right off - good sign - said he could do the clutch for $450 and of course he had all the!
 parts for everything it could be in stock, but he didn't think it was the clutch either.  I told my buddy to get his a@@ to Beetle Barn (like I had orignianlly recommended him to do on Sunday)...2 hrs away....this time he did.<br><br>

They got it to BB at about 4pm Monday, so they weren't able to start that day, but did the first thing Tues morning.  BB helped arrange a rental car for my friends. Turns out it was the clutch after all...the pilot bearing was messed up causing it to fail intermittently.  I had 70K+ hard on and off road tripin' miles on the clutch, so it needed to be replace soon anyway.  He did the job for $530....took more time than expected to get the clutch out and he rotated the tires.  Now my buddy says that it shifts way better than it did before....even when it was working right. <br><br>

He and his fiance ended up with a SUV for a rental car, so they stayed in a hotel that night in Vegas, which was a nice change for them, and then headed to Death Valley for the next couple of days (they had brought a tent just in case).  So everthing worked out perfect, thanks to Beetle Barn.<br> <br>

P.S.  Also I found The List as a result of it all....it's just like hanging around the BB shop...but more warm and fuzzy:) <br> <br>

just wanted to share,
Scott Sackin
Fredericksburg, VA
84 Westy