I've never sold a Vanagon or VW of any type to anyone that hasn't owned
VWs, Busses or Vanagons before.
If someone wants to buy one of my Westies, Busses or other VWs that has
never owned one before I don't consider them a potential buyer.
We aren't fooling anybody with these vans, everybody knows them to be
high maintenance and potentially self destruct under certain abuse
environments.
If my 83 Westy didn't have the camping gear I'd have dumped it long ago.
It is just the unique quality of the Westy that makes it a desirable
vehicle to me .............. just get in and go.
I've invested about $6000.00 in my 83 Westy over eight years and consider
that to be about what I'd have spent on maintaining and vehicle for
170,000 miles.

Stan Wilder

On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 10:14:20 -0500 "Doug Alcock" <doug.alcock@hewitt.com>
writes:

Hi Stan,

You wrote:
>>I'll be the first one to tell a potential buyer that it is common to
>>spend the purchase price again on maintenance and repairs within a
year.

>>since almost everybody I know has invested twice the resale
>>value in their vans within a couple of years.

All too true in my case --- and probably other folks as well. It's just a
bit of a shock to see it so baldly stated.
Cheers,
Doug