"David..M" wrote:

> Taken directly from the USA 1987 VW Vanagon Owners manual page 65:
>
> "While it has proved its ability to handle poor weather conditions and
> has limited off-road capabilities, remember your Vanagon/Transporter is
> not an off-road or all-terrain vehicle"
>
> This 'warning' is repeated several times in the manual.

I bet this warning is more on the liability issue than the mechanical issue. The
Vanagon Syncro is a very capable off roader, VW even sent out promotion pictures
of Vanagons in heavy terrain, (Ron has several of them on the Vanagon.com site)
and as you saw from my manual, they even gave driving tips. I bet that in the US,
several of the SUVs and other off roaders have similar warnings in their owners
manuals. Anybody care to flip through the neighbours SUV manual?? It might be fun.

PerL
88 Syncro
Arendal, Norway