Okay, we have to decide whether the gas fill-up was a red herring, or a
holy mackerel. I think it may have been purely coincidence than your
trouble followed a fill-up under the red & blue V.

A fill-up *could* have contained enough dirt & poo to clog the filter, and
*some* of the symptoms you described would result, (hesitation, slow go,
CHP attention). The rich smell however points to a vacuum leak or something
else.

The 5mpg is a bad sign.

Had you driven the car much lately? Did you change something recently,
(like the timing, or ??) ? Where I'm going is, *if* you changed something
last weekend, and it caused hot exhaust/rich run, you could have puttered
around town for a week or so without any problems. Then the other day, you
hop on the San Diego Freeway for two hours, run it at 70 mph, the
mal-adjusted whatever turns the catalytic converter into molten porcelain.
It cools while you are filling, and becomes a solid chunk of blocking poo
in the converter chamber. Now your van runs like a true VW and we are all
scratching our heads.

Any thoughts folks?

G. Matthew Bulley
Director
Bulley-Hewlett & Associates
www.bulley-hewlett.com
Cary, NC USA
888.468.4880 tollfree

-----Original Message-----
From:   Gregg Howald [SMTP:ghowald@HOTMAIL.COM]
Sent:   Thursday, November 18, 1999 4:17 PM
To:     vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject:        Loss of Power and surging

Help!After two hours of driving south to LAX with no problems, filled up
with 89
Chevron Octane, picked up friend at airport, and back on the road.  Not 5
minutes out of parkade, the engine stalled and restarted OK, but the
problems got worse.  Noticed that there was a serious loss of power, ie,
step on gas, no response.  Went through a 1/4 tank of gas in 20 miles.
Stopping at a gas station, exhaust smelled like engine was running rich.
Took small vacuum line off of pressure regulator and engine responded with
increased RPM, sputtered and stalled.  Took a chance and drove on, stopped
by the California Hiway Patrol for driving too slow on Hwy, never exceeded
40 mph despite giving it gas.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Gregg

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