Hey Andrew,

Tell me WHO is driving a vanagon because its smaller and gets better
mileage?

We drive ours because there is not a more comfortable/roomy vehicle on the
market that seats 7.  And it has no problem tooling down the interstate @ 70
mph for 20 hours at a time, and we have experienced no reliability problems.

What percentage of the 16 year old Ford E-150 vans are still driveable let
alone CHERISHED by their owners?  How many 16 + year old Ford vans are
sold/get bought with 200k miles, with new owners realistically expecting to
drive them for another hundred thousand or two??

If you told me you had the 300 cubic inch straight six in your van I might
think you know what to look for regarding reliability from Ford, but I think
not.  Perhaps you had an unfortunate experience with a vanagon that was
previously mistreated by someone who should have bought a Ford.

There are plenty of really nice Ford lists.  Go bitch to them.

Z
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Fox <afox@CNR.COLOSTATE.EDU>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Date: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: better gas mileage

>> with a manual Westy but I wonder you can get more than that.
Infortunately
>> this van is not burning gas as a compact car.
>
>Forget compact car, it is'nt burning gas at full size van standards
>either.  My 98 Ford E-150 gets 20 mpg on the highway with a 4.2L V-6 and
>6000 lbs vehicle weight, compare that to my 4,000 lb, 2.1L Vanagon which
>gets 16 mpg on the highway with a 2.1L gutless engine.  The 2.1L
>Wasserboxer is not only gutless and unreliable, its expensive to operate,
>inefficent, and bad for the environment.  The old Honda comercial where
>the new hybrid pulls upto the old aircooled bus with all the save the
>environment stickers on it comes to mind here.  Whoever says they drive a
>vanagon cause its smaller and better on gas should get their facts
>straight.
>
>
>>
>> Germain
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Joseph Fortino" <fortinoj@SPEAKEASY.NET>
>> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:18 AM
>> Subject: better gas mileage
>>
>>
>> > hello all,
>> >
>> > seems i'm getting about 30+ mpg, does this sound right after replacing
the
>> ECU and some other tune-up parts i'm getting way better mileage.
>> >
>> > trip meter read 198 miles
>> > took 11 gal at station
>> > 16 gal tank right did the math and came up with 35mpg
>> >
>> > * is my math wrong * ;)
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Joe
>>