I know, we all have our own preferences on who the best mechanic is for our
beloved beast of burden (or lack thereof) but.. I would like to say, that if
you're in Seattle, the Import Doctors at 2nd and Bell here in Belltown ROCK.

I just had them replace the clutch on my car. not only did they do it in the
same day, without prior notice, the price was sub $400. I asked how they
managed to do it so cheaply (seeing that they used the sachs clutch kit and
did the "other" things that they need to do when changing a clutch, and the
response came back as "when you've down a clutch on a Vanagon a couple of
hundred times, you get to the point where you can pull the engine pretty
quickly."

they're good guys, drive Vows and they do the job right the first time. I
took my other Vanagon to them to work on and they were quick to point out
other things that they could get to while they were working on certain
areas. (and they don't do it in a sleazy 'we want more money" kind of way
either)

my $.02 and opinion...

Myles
'86 Vanagon weekender
218k on original engine
no drips, leaks, tears or soil....
;)