Vanagon's - Take me to school!

[Stephan Schmidt]

So my wife and I thought it would be great to do some camping over the next few years seeing that our 2 kids are young and we both love the idea of exploring with the kids.

I was thinking about an earlier bay-window bus, but the heat and creature comforts of the Vanagon's are more appealing to me.

I've never owned one, but the thought is intriguing!

The questions I have are:

Aircooled or watercooled (reliability)? I prefer manual or is there any benefit to the automatic? does the heat actually work well in these campers? Best to look local or below the border? I know CIP1 and gowesty have parts, but are there any other local vanagon specific stores or even wrecking yards?

Thanks!

[bwaz]

I've had an 85 water cooled, lots of pipes for the coolant getting front to back. Most old and expensive to repair. Exhaust was also a pricey piece, but luckily without air care you can do it cheaper. I'd buy the newest one I can get, and if u plan on driving south, air conditioning! Dual batteries were great so you could run one dead for the cooler or lights and still fire up when you're leaving. Propane stove and dual electric or propane fridge great too

[72vwtype2]

I had an 1986 7 passenger automatic van. The automatic was not my cup of tea, as I found the vanagon to be already under powered as it was. I would go with a manual version. The heat in the vanagons are definitely better than the Bays, but still not that great.

For camping (and driving around town) you may want to consider the Multivan Westfalia version. It's the same as a westfalia except that it does not have a stove and fridge. But it does have lots of room for sleeping and more comfortable seating arrangement in the back. It's a compromise between a camping and passenger model. I find the westfalia's are only useful for camping.

One of the biggest issue with Vanagons is seam rust. Due to some poor insulation design most vanagons have significant seam rust issue.

I also agree with Brian the newer the better.

Good Luck!

[Stephan Schmidt]

Thanks for the reply guys!

I've been doing some reading and the transmissions (according to go-westy) leave little to be desired in the aircooled models along with being vastly underpowered.  After what I've read, 86+ with a manual trans is best.  The 83.5-85 models with the 1.9l watercooleds had a ton of cooling issues and headgasket problems.  These were both addressed in 1986 apparently.

The multivan westy looks awesome.  Seats for 7 + a pop top.  However, the lack of cupboards / storage for items when camping is a bit of a downfall.

What about the eurovans?  any experience with them at all? Again, from what I've read I'd only stick to 92-94 models with the westfailia interior, not the winnebego and only purchase one with a manual trans.  I do prefer the looks and the utilitarian aspects of the vanagon better.

[bwaz]

Eurovans, almost bought one last year. 2.5-5 cyl is supposedly a workhorse, but getting parts seems to be tough, the "Brain" is expensive if you can get one. The Automatic transmission on these is known to be AWFUL. Even if you'd got one with a rebuilt tranny, they still supposedly are not great. So, manual would be best, but I think they stopped as of 1997? The later ones had the VR6, not sure about their issues. Personally, if you're going to put kids in one, I'd go for the Winnebago over the Westfalia. It's a little longer wheelbase, and the upper bed is way nicer to use than the westy version. Try one and see how odd the upper bunk sits when the top is open and you want to cook. It's attaches to the top, and made me think it was going to fall on my head. The Winnebago one slides back nicely towards the rear of the van, leaving lots of room. That longer wheel base is really noticeable too when inside and you're cooking or eating. That leg space is nice. No roof exterior storage on the westy, Winni has a rack for stuff on front. Personal choice, but most of the interior on the Westys versions are purple. Nice choice for someone colour blind, but again, the Winni has a nicer colour choice and I think better setup for the cooler and stove. Most of the Winnibago units have a water tank and hose with nozzle at the back when you open the rear lid, and you can spray your feet off it at the beach, or have a shower with it.  IF you get a VR6, they seem really tight to do any work under the hood, especially if there's air conditioning.  Check both out, and get a feel. I did, and thought it one of the few times Westfalia got it not as good as the american version.

[vicali]

We had an 86 Westy for almost ten years;



We bought it from the second owner (both Dr's), it had 180K km and had been painted and rhino lined on the bottom rockers..
Westy so it had all the insides for camping, we took it all over the interior, drive it to our wedding and for our honeymoon.

Sadly, once the kids came we found it to be too small, plus the back seats need to be updated with sholder belts for any kid of passengers.. it was time to moove on so it went to a new owner in Seattle.

Check out the gowesty library;
http://www.gowesty.com/tech-article-details.php?id=38
lots of good info.


 

[Stephan Schmidt]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

i think if I went eurovan (especially after talking to a few of the older techs here at work), the manual westfalia's are the only way to go.  The 2.5's are bulletproof, but the parts around them do fail time to time due to age.  The 5 speeds have no issues, but ALL eurovan automatics are ticking time bombs when it comes to transmission failures.  The westfalia interiors also apparently have much better fit and finish than the US made Winnebago campers.  The VR6's although powerful are (you hit the nail on the head Brian) and absolute pain in the rear end to work on and parts are $$$ (especially for the 24v 2001+ models).

I still love the look of the Vanagon's; Good to know about the seatbelts as i'd definitely need shoulder belts for the kids.