I've got an '85 Westy that I drive year round, but I have been
having trouble with highway travel. After about an hour of cold weather
driving (below 0 F) the engine will start to sputter. This is especially
noticeable if I change speed; e.g. I was driving against a strong head
wind flat out and everything was fine until I had to slow down to enter a
small town. Suddenly the van almost quit entirely! I pulled over, and it
idled normally, but had almost zero power. After idling and warming for a
few minutes, everything was right as rain for about another hour. This has
repeated about 3/4 of the times I drive out of town in the extreme cold. I
called a VW shop here, and I got a guy on the phone who told me that
it's fairly common and VW knows about it, but doesn't have a fix, since
most people park their VW's in the winter and don't experience this
problem. He suggested I could replace the air-flow sensor for $300, but it
may or may not solve the problem. On a subsquent call to this shop, I
couldn't find the guy I had talked to, and the guy on the phone disavowed
any knowledge of Vanagons freezing up on the highway. Has anybody else
heard of this, or experienced it? Any fixes? Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

GARY MILLANG                         email: gmillang@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
10814 173 AVENUE                     phone: 456-5489
EDMONTON, AB, T5X 3Z4