Hi Susan,

The Vanagon is a great vehicle to learn how to perform minor maintenance.
Changing the oil in this vehicle is very easy relative to other vehicles.

I would not get the Bentley to learn about minor maintenance.  The Bentley
assumes you already know minor maintenance.  The first chapter is about
removing the engine and it goes downhill from there.  It may be convenient
to have a copy of the Bentley to offer your mechanic as a reference when you
bring your vehicle in for repair but not for minor maintenance.

Order a copy of the "VW Transporter Service and Repair Manual" ISBN 1 85960
452 8.  The Bus Depot http://www.busdepot.com   sells it for $24.  The first
chapter talks about routine maintenance with lots of pictures.

You may also want to pick-up a copy of "How to Keep your Volkswagen Alive"
by John Muir.  It is for air-cooled vehicles but has a lot of information
that applies to our water-cooled vanagons.   The Muir book gives the best
explanation of what is exactly going on in the engine.  Plus it is kinda
interesting to read.

Good luck,

Paul Borghese

>hello, all,
>i'm really getting my money's worth outta this list...thanks, everyone.
>
>i'd like to learn how to do minor maintenance/repairs on my vanagon,
>say, for example, changing the oil, checking fluids, changing a belt...
>how does one learn to do this? i've never been mechanical at all, but i
>can read and follow well-illustrated directions, and i've changed tires
>and jumped batteries in the past. do i just buy a bentley? find a
>mentor? date a mechanic?