On Fri, 22 Sep 1995, Richard A. Jones wrote:

>I'm close to going with a VW rebuilt motor for my
>'81 Vanagon.
>Anyone have experience with VW rebuilts?  Good?
>Bad?

Not quite what you asked, Richard, but:

Many moons ago (like 10 years) I was in Ft. Collins, CO, and get a
rebuilt from Rocky Mountain Motors of Denver. I think this is the same
group that calls itself Rocky Mountain Motor Works now. Of course, I
have no idea whether the same people are running it now, but it could
well be.

I put the outside stuff on the dualport longblock, and installed it in
my '69 bus (they were very careful to make sure they gave me the busmount
long block, and it went in with zero problems).

Two months later, it spun a bearing and seized up. They drove 60 miles
from Denver to Ft. Collins, up into the hills to find me where I lived
at the south end of Horsetooth Lake, and picked up the entire turnkey
engine (loaded it into a fairly nice looking splittie). A week later
they drove back up to Ft. Collins with a newly assembled engine-- new
longblock with all my outside stuff assembled. It bolted in and ran
beautifully for 40,000 miles until I sold the bus five years later.
They said that the first block evidently had a bad bearing from the
manufacturer. I was running Castrol 10W30 in it, with doghouse cooler.

Yeah, their first attempt with me had a boo-boo. But their service
after the sale was not only excellent-- it was mind-blowing. Zero
charge for any of that day-long trucking back and forth, building
up the turnkey engine the second time around, even though I had paid
only for the bare long block. Smiles, apologies, salutations, etc.

Yes, I know, this was ten years ago. I hope they are the same guys now
as then-- if I were still in Colorado, I would buy engines from them
forever. Even though I kind of doubt they will drive from Denver to
San Diego if there is another problem, next time.

My $0.02. YMMV, but I hope not.

 -Steve Maher   smaher@gi.com   '71 VW Transporter w/tired engine... 
hmmmmm...