Hi Alan,
I also enjoy owning an automatic '90 westy.
I noticed a few of the same things you mentioned.

Alan wrote:
> About the only short coming - if you even want to call it that - I've
found
> with the auto transmission on my Wolfsburg is the points at which gears
> change.  Seems kinda low to me.

Same on mine. Shifts up at very low rpms. Much earlier than I
would manually driving a stickshift vanagon.
Also the van mostly likes to stay in third gear. All the way
down to 2800 rpm. Unless you do the kick-down thing.

Alan wrote:
> But then again, this is the first
> automation transmission I've ever owned - and Phred is my tenth VW.  For
> the past two weeks or so, I've taken to dropping the selector into first,
> and manually going thru the gears from there.  Not reving the engine to
>the
> limits.  Just to the point of getting more RPM's outta each gear.
> Am I the only nut case doing this?  By doing so, do I risk having the
> tranny digest itself as a result?  Is it a good thing to do?  Bad?
>Opinions
> (like this list is shy offering opinions :o))?

I mostly only use the manual selector driving in hilly terrrain, so it
doesn't constantly shift up and down, or sometimes in town,
so it stays in second, and of course, going downhill for braking.
For longevity of the wet clutch disks (or whatever they're called),
it's probably not too good to constantly make them shift at high rpm.
Also the shift lever doesn't seem to be made for constant use,
like a stick shift. Probably the linkages could break after awhile.
I noticed the vanagon auto tranny likes to mostly stay in third gear.
The third gear (with the torque convertor) seems to have a lot of
flexibility. I can go up a steep hill at 2800 rpm at about 40-45 mph,
or manually shift down into second and rev the engine at 3600+ rpm
and still only go the same speed.
Just some musings. Basically I like the auto tranny.
Harald
'90 westy