My two bits on this is that I've had two wagons both with automatics, one 84
and my current 86, have driven them both a lot a lot of miles and never ever
had a problem. I'm no mechanic but I think they're built like tanks.

Alain PIerre
86 Westy
Toronto

on 9/19/00 11:33 AM, Dave L at k1cajun@PIPELINE.COM wrote:

> I've got an appointment to look at an 88 Vanagon with an automatic
> transmission tonight.  It's got 83,000 miles on the chassis, about
> half of that on a VW remanufactured engine which the owner says was
> installed at the dealer's cost since service work the dealer did
> caused the first engine to "blow".
>
> So I wonder what is the overall reliability of the automatic
> transmission in Vanagons.  Do they have any known faults, or are they
> fine as long as they are properly maintained ?  How does a Vanagon
> with A/T perform - as well, or poorer than with stickshift ?