I lived in Colorado Springs for about a year and in my opinion you should
hang in there and keep looking for a Westfalia there is just so much more
you can do in a Westy.
I'm not a waser boxer fan but I think they tend to do well with the
altitude and the mountains in your area.
A diesel that is broke is worth almost nothing same goes for any other
broken car.
Try to find something that is running fairly well and will give you at
least a year of good service; even with 2000cc aircooled you're looking
at 1500$ minimum for a rebuilt engine and with WaserBoxers it can go as
high as 3000$ so the initial value has to be there in considering your
purchase.
If you find a vehicle that you like try to get the owner to let you take
a couple of 100 mile local trips in the vehicle. Give him a substantial
deposit and take it for a drive.
I just sold an 81 Westfalia Air Cooled and I encouraged potential buyers
to make a few local trips before making their purchase. As things worked
out I sold it to a fellow that had already had Westys and he did his 20
point check list and left for Houston in it (250 Miles). I heard back
from him and he's run a few thousand miles without any problems. However
every used car is *buyer beware* even if you get it from your Dad.
I looked at about ten Vanagons / Westys before I found the one that I
bought, it took about a year to find the Westy that I've now had for
seven years.
Keep looking.
I can't help you on WaserBoxers but if you need a checklist for aircooled
I can supply it.

Stan Wilder

On Fri, 5 Oct 2001 06:47:24 -0700 Craig Spaeth <spaeth@GORGE.NET> writes:
> We had a diesel Westy for just over a year. It slept four got
> 25-30mpg and you
> could make hot chocolate without really getting out of bed... as
> good as this
> sounds we have two little girls that usually go to sleep on road
> trips. This
> translates to us wanting to cover a lot of ground while they sleep.
> The diesel is
> not good for this. If you are patient and enjoy the world at your
> own pace it is
> an awesome vehicle. I have driven old split window busses my whole
> driving career
> and the diesel vanagon makes the splitties look fast. Part of it is
> the loooow
> gearing. They rev really high on the highway. You will spend most of
> your time
> around 55-60mph. Any hill (I am talking about normal freeway rises
> not just
> mountain passes) or headwind will drop you to 40mph. We now have a
> 90 Gas powered
> Westy multi-van and love it. The mileage sucks but we can cruise at
> 70 and pull
> most hills at around 60. I still miss the diesel from time to time.
> It had a ton
> of character. We got passed by some friends returning from a VW
> show. I saw them
> later and they said they though we had blown up our engine. We were
> going very
> slow and there was smoke coming out the back. I just said no it's a
> diesel.
> Good luck deciding,
> Craig
> the Gorge VW club
>
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