>From: Gerald Skerbitz <gsker@lenti.med.umn.edu>

Awww right!  A flame war on levers...

>> 
>> I believe the VW engineers did a good job designing the four lever system.
>> You can't make it any simpler.  I have no trouble with it but my parents 
>
>I'm rolling on the floor laughing while reading this.  You have four levers
>not separated at all so you can't tell which on you are moving. The three
>that control WHERE the air goes are separated by one that controls the temp
>of the air (one increases air flow to its opening when shifted to the right,
>and the other decreases air flow to its opening when shifted to the right). 
>The one at the BOTTOM is fresh air and looks and feels just like the ones
>that are hot air.  The fresh air to the back is controlled like the heat, and
>the fresh air to the front is controlled by the vent it comes out of, and the
>Air Conditioning system is a totally separate system of its own with its own
>peculiarities. You call this simple??  WOW.  You actually can NOT operate 
>this system without either the manual or about an hour of playing with it 
>to figure out what it does.  The only thing simple about the system is 
>that it was probably pretty easy to implement because it makes you do all 
>the thinking.

I think the simplicity gives you more control.  Yes, you have four levers
but you can direct the air direction and amount.  I like that because there
are different combinations.  You are in control not the vehicle.  We also
have an Aerostar (yes, I admit it, a non-vw buts that's another story) that
has two levers.  One for temp and the other that does everything.  Here it's
all or nothing.

Also, (and this is my theory) this is a vehicle for world wide consumption
that has many configurations for various markets.  It started life as an
air-cooled vehicle and then changed to water-cooled.  I don't know if they
still produce the air-cooled version but its much harder to control the temp
with air-cooled engines. I remember our old 72 bus that had two cold air
levers, two hot air levers, one lever under the dash and two levers in the
rear.  Now they put all the controls together.  What about other models?
Do panel vans or pickups have rear vents?  They may make vehicles with two
or three lever types.  I don't know. 

Any comments?

Jonathan
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Jonathan Dove   jdove@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
82 Rabbit PU, 83 GTI, 85 Vanagon, 87 Golf
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