My rear hatch had mysterious oily grease on it and had me severely
confused for a while.  on mine i suddenly realized i was looking at
moly grease and i had blown the boot right off of the right outer cv
joint. almost all of the grease was contained inside of the housing
and not spread all over.
jimt

On Nov 6, 2005, at 9:56 PM, BA wrote:

> Hi, all,
>
> This was discussed once (as far as I could find) in the archive, last
> August.  The sole response to the described problem was "look under
> the engine ... if it's sufficient to put an oily film on your back
> hatch, the cause will be obvious".
>
> Except ... it's not obvious!  Not to us, nor to the VW repair shop
> where we take our Vanagon.  And the repair shop has so far not steered
> us wrong. (Our shop-supplied engine has not yet done 10,000 miles. And
> it isn't a re-conditioned engine ... it's a new VW engine.)
>
> The best suggestion the repair shop could offer was that we'd been on
> newly-oiled roads.  That just doesn't fit.
>
> So I wonder ... has anyone else had this happen, and if so what were
> the suggestions and (hopefully) fix for the problem?
>
>
> Just to make the question more interesting, we're off to San Felipe,
> Baja Norte, Mexico, next weekend - filmy hatch or not!!!  I (the more
> adventure-conservative of us two) have decided that if I'm in an older
> vehicle that needs attention, I'd rather have that happen in Baja than
> in the US.  Those folx know how to cherish good, old vehicles!
>
>
> B&S
> '87 Westy 'Esmerelda Blanc'
> SoCal
>
>