>I mechanic for 2 '91 GL's, mine and my daughter's. Hers had a leak in the rear 
>heater. After taking it apart we discovered that it is a genuine piece of
junk. 
>i.e. it is of French origin and plastics are used extensively where they
should 
>not be used.

You gotta problem with the French???

My '85 has the same design and I think you are right, there are a lot of
plastics where there should be metal but the front heater is also made by
the French, and has the same use of plastic.  The two halves of the plastic
flange that the heater hoses go into and contains the regulator began to
separate on mine, I reassembled them with that blue gasket stuff and it has
done fine for the last few months--we'll see.

My van has 135,000 miles on it and I don't think that it leaked for many of
those miles, though.  BTW, my '85 Jetta had the heater core problem as well
and was the subject of an NHTSA recall.  The core was also made in France.
>
>(BTW, Jim, I live in Ames during my real like altho I work at the U of M.)

Have your read Jane Smiley's "MOO" yet, great book--she lives in Ames and it
sounds a LOT like Ames to me.
_________________________________________________________
Donald Baxter  <dbax@mindspring.com>  Atlanta, Georgia
404.874-3292 (home)
404.447.6831 (work)

_________________________________________________________
You know why the reason why some nights you don't have a dream?
When there's just blackness? And total silence?

Well, this is the reason:
It's because on that night you are in somebody else's dream.
And the reason you can't be in your own dream because
you're already busy in somebody else's dream.

                                -Laurie Anderson, Stories from the Nerve
Bible (1993)