well, i have to formally take back most of the mean nasty things i may
have said (or thought) about VW Germany. i had written the customer
assistance folks in wolfsburg back in april/may, asking for some technical
literature/documentation about buses and vanagons. i had mention the bus
list (which only had about 50 people back then).  they replied, after about
a month, saying it would take some time to compile the requested stuff.

after four months, i had given up on them.

but today in the mail, i get three packages from Denmark ... from VW. two
more Bildkatalogs (picture catalogs of parts ... each page is the same
drawing that is on the microfiche. unfortunately, no part numbers are
included). and one little book about Traveling under Difficult Conditions.
only trouble is, that book is for Golfs and Jettas. :(

and to top it off, they apologized for taking so long, and sent a vw shopping
bag (with their german truck slogan on the side: Volkswagen - da weiss man,
was man hat.  which i think roughly translates into: volkswagen - you know
what you have (are getting?)) and also a little vw emblem stick pin.

that's not all the stuff i had asked for, but maybe the rest of it is still
in the mail somewhere. maybe.

so, if anybody else wants to try their hand at get stuff, here's the address:

Kundendienst / Customer Assistance
Volkswagen AG
D-38436 Wolfsburg
GERMANY

and the nice folks who sent the stuff were:
Klaus Chojnacki  and Steffi Gru:ndel (Mrs.)

<that u: is their u with the two little dots over it. what they call Umlaut>

joel