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Date:         
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         
Subject:      Re: Vanagon Head Gaskets

>>
>>- REPLACE THE COOLANT regularly. every two years or sooner. every year would
>>    be better, but two years is ok. why? cause the coolant "wears out" ...
>>    the corrosion inhibitors in the coolant grow weaker over time, and will
>>    eventually NOT be able to prevent corrosion. once corrosion begins, if
>>    the coolant contains phosphates, the corrosion is accelerated.
>>
>>why vw seems to say that the coolant is a "never-replace" item, i don't know
>>.. it makes no sense to me. all water-cooled cars that i've ever known have
>>needed to have the coolant replaced periodically. even tractors and trucks.
>>
>>the problem with vanagons seems to be that once any corrosion ever starts,
>>it gets out of hand very quickly. but then, so did that toyota truck!
>>joel
>>

I am not trying to argue if we should replace coolants once every 2 years
or so. I rather believe it but I never replaced the coolant on my 84 vanagon
until I joined this list and learned that the consequence of not doing so
could be disasterous. 

When I eventually tried to replace I did not drain the system completely
before refilling. Anyway, my head gaskets are apparently OK at 106k miles
now. I remember I even used the green stuff to top off once for a while.

I am just wondering if the head gasket problem is caused by something else.
My 83 westy had the gasket problem (not fixed yet as of today) when it
was owned by my buddy. He had all maintenance/repair done by VW dealer and 
yet the problem occurred. My friend got very disappointed with the westy
and unloaded it to me when he went to work on a job overseas. It's got
60k miles only. I am trying to determine if I should seek VWoA to pay the
(majority) cost to fix it. 

David Kao
dkao@eng.sun.com
83 westy, 84 vanagon