I feel their pain.

The chances of someone in Ecuador fixing the one-off Eurovan A/T are nil, and it's about the same odds here in the US.  They are just plain junk right from the factory, as are replacement parts today. That was money down the toilet.  

I give them no better than a 50-50 chance of making it home in that van with the manual conversion, which was designed for the 5 cylinder engine, but I wish them luck.  If it isn’t too worn out and they drive very gently . . .

Stuart
Previously owned a '97 EVC and am back to the Vanagon with a simple and cheap A/T now.

From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Michael Hart
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 12:09 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: RTW Blogs: Vanagon vs. Eurovan

Some of you may have been following these two travel blogs, I have found them very entertaining

'Seventeen by Six'
http://seventeenbysix.wordpress.com/
- From London to South America by Eurovan camper What a nightmare of transmission reliability problems !
See a recent entry for the story on their 11 month long attempt to convert from their problem plagued auto tranny to a 5 speed; http://seventeenbysix.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/a-transmission-tragedy-abridged/
Hopefully they finally have a reliable vehicle....