Well if anyone wants to believe this, info. I would say Sell your Van.
Sell it as cheap and fast as you can. I don't let fear rule my life. I
will buy it!

            Eric                   86-VW4x4
            vw4x4@fyi.net          72-240z
            Pittsburgh, PA USA     1936-Chrysler

On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, HARRIST wrote:

> Hate to be a party pooper, but we vanagoneers should not get too smug about
> crashworthiness.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash
> tested one of our beloved bricks at 35 mph head-on into a fixed barrier.  I
> obtained the crash footage from the National Crash Analysis Center, which
> maintains a catalogue of all government crash tests on a website.  (Just
> point your browsers to NHTSA)
>      First, let me tell you that this dummy was not instrumented.  Don't ask
> me why, but I think it has something to do with the relatively low volume of
> Vanagons that were sold in the states compared with other vehicles.  Because
> that dummy did not have its little accelerometers wired up, we will never
> know the loads that the pelvis and femur took as that brand new burgundy van
> crumpled into the fixed barrier.    However, I am assuming they were
> significant based on the lack of crush zone in front of our feet.
>      But there's a reason they shoot these tests at 1000 frames a second
> with a dozen or so cameras mounted above, below, inside and beside the crash
> vehicle.   It's so you can see with your own eyes the forces that are
> transmitted to the vehicle and the dummies inside.  If you order a vhs
> cassette of this crash test, you will see what I saw:  the face of the dummy
> in the drivers seat smacks the steering wheel with incredible force.  This,
> even though the dummy was buckled with shoulder and lap belt.  I have talked
> with auto safety engineers about what I saw and the best explanation they
> came up with was a condition called excessive spoolout.  That is to say, the
> inertial locking mechanism in the shoulder belt allowed too much belt to
> spool out.   This, of course, allowed the violent faceplant into the
> steering wheel.   Again, without instrumentation, we do not know the G
> forces applied to the face of that dummy as it struck the steering wheel.
>  But my own crude  frame-by-frame analysis of the footage indicates the
> dummy's face was not decelerating.  If anything, it was accelerating toward
> the steering column.  (Ouch)
>      This is not an unknown condition.  Back in 1979, a Honda sedan had
> excessive spoolout and it performed miserably in the government's New Car
> Assessment Program 35-mph head-on crash test.  Honda engineers went to work
> on their belt mechanism -- they also redesigned their steering column -- and
> presto, three years later the Honda performed admirably.
>      My guess is that VW never had to redesign their belt system because the
> Vanagon was never tested under the New Car Assessment Program.  (The
> government only began NCAP testing light trucks and minivans in the mid
> 1990s.  Still, no Vanagon or Eurovan testing, to my knowledge)
>      I don't want to scare anyone.  We take risks every time time we get out
> of bed in the morning.  But I thought some of you might want to know.
>
> Stew Harris
> harrist@abcnews.com
>