>
>Hi VW Van Fans
>
>Wife and I are about to sign ourselves away for the 1997 EV Winnie. Does
>anybody have any words of reservation or encouragement? We need your
>advice. We appreciate your advice.
>
>Is it a good product?
>
>I have recently heard that VW service at the dealers is very costly, and
>frustrating?!
>
>Will it hold its value and does it hold up well?
>
>Anything else we should know before me make this (nervous) commitment?
>
>wishing you well: THANKS!
>

I don't know about those white bumpers - seems like they'd be hard to keep
clean.

just kidding. There were some recent complaints about the comfort of the rear
bed and the quality of the closet door, but nothing major that I recall.
You can check the archives for the history of the EV here, although since
the 97 has that whizbang VR6 engine you don't have to worry about that.
Clearly there has been some frustration among some of the '93 owners, even
a few
problems among the 95s. But there also seem to be lots of owners happy with
them as well.

Winnebago seems to be better than *some* US companies in regard to quality
control, but they're sure not perfect. There are a lot of components
plugged into the EVC providing lots of potential failure points.

Probably the best advice is to make sure that:
1) your dealer is willing to service the Winnebago components;
 otherwise you may have to find a Winnebago service place and they may have
never seen such a vehicle;
2) you test *every* component before driving it off the lot - if anything
doesn't work get it in writing.
3) when you pass me climbing the pass in my '95 be polite!
4) you get the Winnebago Service Training Manual - it has lots of good
maintenance & functional info that should have been in the User's Manual.

-rick

Rick Gordon
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
-------------------------------------
rickgo@halcyon.com
http://www.halcyon.com/rickgo/
KC7QEG
finger for PGP public key fingerprint
-------------------------------------