> >'91 Carat - New belt by my mechanic. Squeals like hell at start up. He
> >claims most vanagons do.
>
> Can't he do better than that?  At the dealer they'd say "ALL Vanagons do
> [insert obvious malfunction here]."

I love this!  This is exactly whay tells you to stay away from the
mechanic.  When I first bought my vanagon (and was more clueless then
now), I had a VW mechanic tell me that all vanagon's emergency brakes are
weak.  He even had some story of having to pull on it like hell once to
stop a serious injury and how he had to almost pull the lever off.  Yeah
right!  He then proceeded to put the wrong pads on in the rear of my van.

Well, I knew better then to trust a guy who put in the wrong brakes (I
found out because they broke).  So, I haven't been back and I've learned
better since.

b