For those who don't know I work on Vanagon only.

Yes parts are lately a bit more difficult to get and that is a fact.
Impossible for some but not many. Most standard maintenance parts are in
general pretty easy to get. Still, some parts are fading away slowly for
now, will they come back in force? I don't know. Bus's (72-79) and Splity
are stll on the road but they are more simpler vehicle, way less parts and
less electronic, you can also replace FI with carbs eliminating a lot of
crucial parts.

The problem for shop owner is "how long to get the part", most shop owner
don't have the luxury to leave a van on a lift and wait to many days to 2
weeks for parts to arrive, and that is THE real problem! So shop that don't
live out of Vanagon may choose to work on other vehicle.

So it mean something simple, a lot of preparation and a good diagnostic
before you start the job... or you may be left with a stranded non working
van for many days. Why the hell a shop owner would like to deal with that????

But now, why would shop work on Vanagon??? or any older vehicle? It's a
passion and nothing else, but passion fade away with time.

If i didn't have that Subaru conversion going on I would have gone crazy by
now and I would probably work on something else. Also, for most of us this
is a gateway toy. But we love our toys and that make us more... demanding.
We want our toy fix for the big weekend!!! but you the customer neglected
basic maintenance and now you blame the mechanic... i see that every week.

That said, i don't work on Air-cool no more for that reason (and others), i
can't get parts easily. This is why i gather use parts for water cool
vanagon  since 5 years, they save me a lot of trouble. A use part is better
than no part.

It's a passion thing but there is more reliable camper van out there, more
expensive of course.

So if by doing this post you are looking for advice! Well, now you know. You
are not buying reliability.

Ben
http://www.benplace.com

On Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:22:01 -0700, Bernie <berniej@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>A good VW shop in North Vancouver is now recommending to it's customers NOT
>to purchaseVanagons as they are "too old" and some replacement parts
>difficult if not impossible to get.
>Your comments please?
>
>
>Bernie
>Vancouver