The reason why I made my statement about VW rebuilds being Junk is because
that in the last 6 months I have heard from over 10 Vanagon owners that have
had VW rebuilds (from Canada) installed in thier vans.
Within 40k miles from time of installation these engines suffered from:
Broken Crankshafts
Engine Lock-Up
Head Degeneration (loosing compression because of defective head rebuild).
    VWs response in every case has either been "tough luck" if the warranty
had expired, or a repeatedly failed attempt to repair the engine which must
have something majorly wrong with it in the first place (like putting
together mismatched case halves upon assembly, hence the crank breaking
problem).
    I talk to alot of people that have engine problems because I sell parts
and also offer the 5-cylinder kit.
    The reason why I think we are not hearing alot of agreement to my
statement on the List is that for the most part folks who have spent the
large amount of money to buy a VW rebuild (overpriced in my opinion) and have
the van break down within 2 years afterward are just so discusted that they
usually wind up selling thier van.
In the same time span I have talked to:
1 person who had a head gasket problem with AVP (which they are attempting to
resolve in a good way)
1 person who had a head problem with Boston Bob (which wasn't resolved for
some reason).
My 2 cents on this one.  I would be much more confident with an AVP rebuild
than VW of America (plus its about half the price!).
Ken Wilford
Van-Again
John 3:16