Dear Andrew and All, I'm the guy that says you'll spend the purchase
price of your van again within a year for parts and maintenance.
Having restored several I'll personally state that I've never brought a
Van back from the depths of neglect, abuse or sitting dormant for less
than I paid for it.
There are a lot of things an individual owner can do for themselves if
they have the time and a decent repair manual. Even with personal skills
and the manual it is easy to reach that purchase price within a year.

Stan Wilder

On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 09:51:19 -0700 (MST) Andrew Fox
<afox@cnr.colostate.edu> writes:
>
> After joining a VW Van club and meeting lots of actual Vanagon
> owners in
> person I came to a conclusion which goes like this:
> Happy Vanagon owners fall into 3 categories:
>
> 1.  Those who spend LOTS of time and energy working on them and
> understanding them to make them reliable.
>
> 2.  Those who spend LOTS of money paying someone to make their
> vanagon
> reliable.
>
> 3.  Those who are very lucky and have very few problems with their
> vanagons (very rare).
>
> If you dont fall into one of these 3 categories you live in
> "Vanagon
> Hell".  Without actally meeting Vanagon owners in person (like on
> this
> list) it can be really hard to determine how much time and/or money
> they
> spend on this "hobby".
>
> It ticks me off when someone writes to the list asking about advice
> on
> buying their first vanagon and someone who owns several vanagons and
> knows
> all their ins and outs and designs aircraft parts for a living
> writes them
> back saying what a great vehicle they are and how trouble free they
> are.
> Bottom line is its not a vehicle for the layperson who wants to
> travel on
> the cheap like many of us thought when we bought these vans.  Its
> more of
> a hobby for technically skilled and financially healthy persons.
> Nothing
> wrong with that, just everyone please stop giving the average joe
> the
> impression that these things just need a little TLC and they're good
> to
> go.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrew Fox
> 86 Westy
>
>
>
>
>
>

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