On May 23, 2011, at 3:54 PM, Chris S wrote:

> I put 198k miles on my 2001 TDI with a $75 MAF and a used $400 injection pump. Everything else is original, to include the alternator and clutch, outside of timing belt maintenance. I reluctantly sold that car last week, so that would a big DISAGREE from the Polish camp. 

Is that the Polish as in polish the vanagon, or Polish as in from Poland camp?

Not quite sure!

Mr. BZ-trying to be PC here!
> 
> 
> Chris.
> 
> Wysłane z iPhone'a
> 
> Dnia May 23, 2011 o godz. 15:20 Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM> napisał(a):
> 
>> A freind of mine paid about $ 150 for an AHU camshaft, in the aftermarket,
>> not a dealer.
>> Lifters run from 10 dollars to a bit more .........should have new ones to
>> go with a new cam usually.
>> 
>> I personally wouldn't put it in a vanagon. They cost too much to operate
>> long term, or at least a large portion of the time.
>> 
>> I won't go all nutty here ..
>> but really ..
>> what I like is an engine that is likely to go without much going wrong with
>> for at least 150,000 miles..
>> even more.
>> Engines that are so fundamentally robust ..and so *not stressful on
>> themselves in normal operation like diesel are* that you know you are going
>> to get years of opertion out of it.
>> 
>> Like maybe the occasional water pump, or exhaut repair .....
>> or even head gaskets..
>> all nicely fixable, doesn't have to be very expensive fairly normal issues.
>> Waterboxers are like that.
>> sure, they have joke headgaskets that need to be done every 80K miles or 8
>> years ..but there's no timing belt to break or fail..
>> it's a non-inteference engine ....
>> low tech actually, underpowered sure, and silly head gasket design ..
>> but it's not likely to fail seriously, or at least not for a long, long
>> time.
>> 
>> Now if VW diesels were like say mercedes diesel engines ..
>> and they'll go for 200K miles and even more .........with barely any
>> attention ..
>> man would that be nice !
>> 
>> you know........give me an engine that I know is fundamentally robust,
>> durable, and not prone to catastopic failures like what happens with any
>> timing belt failure on any vw diesel . The belt gets out of place for one
>> second, and it's thousands of dollars gone, right there.
>> Or ...at about 80,000 miles do a full rebuild ..and 'even then'  there's
>> still big risk.
>> 
>> it's that the margin between running ok and total disaster can be bridged in
>> an instant with vw diesels..
>> sometimes, for some people, without any warning even.
>> 
>> but hey ..there's good money in fixin' the dang things.
>> and we all get to know eachother better this way, and that's rewarding.
>> So thanks VW ..
>> if they were really built extra robust and strong, we wouldn't all know each
>> other like this and be helping each other out.
>> what fun.
>> scott
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Mark Dearing" <VWBrain@AOL.COM>
>> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
>> Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 7:33 AM
>> Subject: TDI bad camshaft
>> 
>> 
>>> hey guys have a 05 TDI engine that has eatten up one of the lobes on  the
>>> camshaft.   Is this a common problem and what causes just one lobe  to get
>>> eatten up. where is the best place to buy a new one. dealer wants $800
>>> for
>>> it.  I was thinking of installing this in a vannie but am having second
>>> thoughts   later  mark d