Holy crap man, how is Gowesty's bias hurting you at
all. Are you planning on selling/renting aircool
vanagons? if anything they keep the prices down of our
beloved pre-96' vanagons with this snobbery.  I agree
with you but how is this guys article hurting anyone
really.
Id be more pissed at VW-Trends magazine for never
publishing ANY vanagon articles (for reasons that they
are mostly watercooled, no doubt)

Phil 84' Westy , tiicoed

--- Mike Rouby <mikerouby@YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Anyone who has read GoWesty's catalog or website,
> will get to the info in this link:
>
>   http://www.gowesty.com/campermodeloverview2.html
>
>   According to them:
>
>   1) Aircooled Westfalia's are the WORST models
>   2) Thank God they only sold the Diesel models for
> two years
>   3) Round headlight Westfalias are not recommended
> for sale.
>
>   1) Aircooled Westfalias - According to them they
> last 90k miles before requiring a rebuild.  How many
> here can easily claim they are wrong here.  Yes they
> are slow (67hp) but Wesfalias were never quick out
> of the factory.  What the author fails to mention is
> that HP increases can be attained easily as many VW
> Type 4 engine owners will testify.  James Raby had
> built a Type 4 in a Bug in the latest Hot VW mag
> that puts out over 170hp on the engine dyno.
>
>   He then mentions the shifter linkage.  It's not
> nearly a problem as the author makes it out to be.
> Compared to his beloved 2.1 waterboxer, the
> aircooled are the most reliable of the engines
> offered - 30 years of VW bus know-how.  But alas, VW
> knew the North American market would not be pleased
> with just 70HP (DIN) and so, they commited to
> unproven design (aka the waterleaker) rather than go
> inline.
>
>   2) Diesel models - Without question, Diesel models
> (like their aircooled cousins) are extremely
> reliable.  No mention is made of this.  As with the
> Type 4, yes it is very slow, but reliability is the
> key here.  Not susceptable to the head seal and
> common coolant woes the "waterleakers" deal with and
> they command a very strong following.  There are
> people who would not have bought a Westfalia at all,
> if a Diesel model were not available.  Plus, there
> are many 'performance' upgrade paths with the Diesel
> (even gas conversion) and plenty of 'veggie oil'
> kits that makes this engine, the engine of choice
> for many.  Those owners would NEVER trade for a
> 86-91 Westfalia (GoWesty's bread and butter).
>
>   3) Round headlight models - The authors claim
> infuriates me.  There are many a late 1986-1991
> owner who, out of sake of character or for better &
> cheaper lighting requirements (eg SA grill) revert
> back to round headlights.  But thanks to GoWesty
> your round headlight cars are harder to sell.
>
>   I propose we go to GoWesty headquarters, and take
> all our round headlight cars, park them across the
> street and face the back of our cars towards the
> building.  Do you think they'll get the message???
> Nah, they'll be too busy selling their 86-91 Westys
> at $15,000 markup to listen.
>
>
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