And now it may be abundantly clear that almost all water-cooled vanagons
use coolant very slowly .
it's normal for the license plate bottle to go down up to an inch per month.

'somebody' has to check things like fluid levels, if the spare is flat,
tire pressures, brake fluid level, battery water ..
all those sorts of things,
unless you have a l Crew Chief to do that.  The owner/operator is
supposed to be their own Crew Chiefunless they have one.
Don't think that if you have major work done the shop will check little
thingslike that.
I have seen a jetta clutch job done for about $ 800 .......6 inches from
the transmission the coolant bottle was low ..
think they topped that up ? ..or even advised that it was low or needed
50 cents worth of fluid ?

so typical...I talked to a shop before they did a vanagon customer's
honda clutch job, timing belt and water pump ..
hoping to inspire them to do good thorough work.
Besides the $ 1,500 plus for the clutch, t-belt-water pump they said the
brake fluid was black ..
so they sold that job,  $ 96 labor and 35 in brake fluid .......it
likely took 15 minutes max with car on the rack.

Think they changed the also black clutch hydrucalic fluid too ?
and with a clutch job too ..
of course not ..the woman had to go back and get them to do that ..
and that also was a 8 minutejob and on that caryou can do it in the
front lot ,no need to do anything but open the hood.
I don't think it's really possible to get good car work done anywhere,
regardless of how much you pay.
Sad to say.

On 4/21/2013 5:39 PM, David Beierl wrote:
> At 08:21 PM 4/21/2013, PB wrote:
>> THANKS, VANAGON FRIENDS!
>
> :)
>
>
>> I'm back home now, and all is well.
>
> Excellent.
>
>>  As for the water situation, I SAW water in the tank, but it was
>> about 3"
>> below the cap.
>
> That's the point when you get warned by the blinker.  In normal
> operation that tank runs completely full, no bubble.  It vents a bit
> to the overflow tank as it comes up to full temperature, and sucks
> coolant back from the tank when it cools off.  So your warning system
> was functioning perfectly.
>
> Yrs,
> d
>