Euro shops that don't work on VW vans any more????

[debbiej]

I have spent a long day being dismayed to find out that lots of shops won't work on VW Vans. How can this be true of a vehicle that has such a high resale value, that is so valued? most of the shops who were honest just said the difficulty getting parts, or lack of computer diagnostics were the reasons they wouldn't work on them. What does a person with a van who isn't able to wrench do to keep their vans on the road? Is this true of locations everywhere? I feel lucky to have found one independent shop that has a good VW mechanic who would like to work on my 5 cyl diesel, 5 speed manual California, but hourly rates will be higher because I'll likely have to order my own parts. my van will need a starter at some point, and I'd like to have air, fuel and oil filters on hand too. I may have to crawl back under a westy again!!??

[Glenn]

[debbiej]

good points explaining why. can't sell it, because I just bought it and I really love it. I used to work on my vanagon, but I'm 15 years older, and I don't know if I can do it anymore! I guess I'm lucky to have found one mechanic who is excited to work on it!

[samba415]

I understand your frustration. Is Tucson too far for you? I've been building a new list of shops for myself. I have a reference in Tucson about Eurovan work, but no confirmation of work on a unicorn like yours.

Independent Volkswagen & Audi services
5205 E 22nd St
Tucson, AZ 85711
United States


Your internet "part" world should focus on Canada and the UK for english speakers. Look to the classified section here on the samba. CdnVWJunkie, a member here, may be of some assistance with used parts and sources in North America.
_________________
Old stable: '63 Baja, '69 Square, '72 Bug, '65 & '67 Samba, '73 412 wagon & 2dr 4spd

Current: '04 Golf TDI, '03 Weekender

[kourt]

I recall seeing your posts about your T4 California, imported from the Netherlands. Nice van.

...but any car imported into the US must be at least 25 years old (strike one).

...and it's a European market car, with components (engine, trans, even the torsion bars) built for that market (strike two).

This may be difficult to hear, but it needs to be said: if you want a Eurovan camper, and you want mechanics in the US to be receptive to it, the only realistic options are the 01-03 US market Eurovans. And even then, most mechanics balk at them.

The older vans, and especially any non-US market vans, are beyond the support scope of almost all mechanics.

Your options are to sell your van and find a good 01-03 US market van, or to find resources to repair it yourself. It sounds like you have some experience in repair, but I hear you when you mention being a few years older now. I look at my cars and wonder, "what is my age limit for this kind of work?"

Sympathetically,

kourt

[mikemtnbike]

I try to do all my own work, but sometimes the time/money equation doesn't balance. I am super, super lucky to live in a town with multiple shops with both the expertise and willingness to work on older VWs of all types, including the weird stepchild that is an early Eurovan.

If I was in your situation, I'd think about getting work done on the van as an investment in future happiness. Find the best shop you can that really has the expertise needed- somewhere in Albuquerque, Salt Lake, Tucson, wherever. If you can drive the van there safely, do so and rent a car home. Otherwise, ship the van. Have them do a full inspection with a generous (like 5k or more) budget in mind. Make sure they understand your goals beforehand and that you are satisfied with the communication happening. Understand that they may have your van for 3 months, or more.

Get the van back in the best running condition you can afford. Then, major work left will hopefully be minimal.

Just as an example- with my van, I did the following immediately after purchase:

- Timing belt, water pump, radiator, thermostat all replaced with new.
- AT drained, ran, drained again, transmission cooler installed.
- Oil change aka the obvious and easy one.
- Brakes overhauled as best I could. This meant, for me, a partial rebuild on front calipers, new pads, rotors, complete drum brake system replacement in back. Total bleed of system. New soft lines all the way around. This should be job #1 in my opinion
- Replaced a few suspect hoses (mostly around the aux pump)- other hoses look fine and I've left them alone.
- New shocks, CVs, upper ball joints.


Without knowing that all of those jobs had been done in the last 10 years, I would consider that to be the minimum level of deferred maintenance most 30 plus year old vehicles should have before being used regularly. The only exception is the last item (shocks, CVs, upper ball joints). If what you have inspects fine, leave them. Mine did not.

For doing your own work, thomasexovcds videos on youtube are about the best resource we have for eurovans IMO.
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1991 Vanagon GL 2.1 AT Westfauxlia. "Frankie" Totaled https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=764510&highlight=carnage
1995 Eurovan Camper "Marzivan"
2020 GTI SE manual

[JMenacker]

A local indie Mercedes Benz performance shop was happy to service our ‘99 EVC. I’m not sure if we were just lucky or if MB and VW systems are similar enough to pique interest. None of the more BMW or VW centric shops indicated interest.
Although I used to perform most maintenance on all of our vehicles, the grayer I get, the less inclination I have for self service. It certainly has become a conundrum balancing the incredibly useful aspect of the van against current and future service needs. We have been waffling for past six or seven years to keep or sell.
Joe M in WV

[debbiej]

thank you all for the thoughtful and helpful conversation. Neither Albuquerque or Tucson is too far at all. I have called all the shops I know of in Tucson, having a son who lives there, I'd take either our 84 Westie there, but none of them are working on eurovans of any age. I haven't called any in Albuquerque, not having had good an experience with a few there. I had a great place in El Paso for a while, but again, that was a vanagon.
One reason we could work on the vanagon was the engine was so open, and simple. also, I was in my 50's and 60's and now I'm officially an old VW lady of 74.
this Eurovan has been meticulously maintained, all records in a thick file. Most in Dutch, but I've identified documentation of yearly indoor storage, timing belt and water pump 11/23, all filters and oil changed in 4/23 (roughly 4800 miles ago) a very long and complete inspection report and am pretty sure a long list of other important information is there beginning from when the van was new. Mechanically, and cosmetically it is quite amazing for it's age, and a manual 5 speed, or we probably wouldn't have bought it.

I didn't realize we would have this problem, although I have found several possibilities in Canada for parts. the shop I went to yesterday is willing to work on it with parts supplied by us,, which will probably cost us more an hour, but oh well...

thanks everyone, and I'm glad for any and all ideas and advice! we paid more than we should have, I know now. but I'm still happy to have it. the mechanic I talked to yesterday was almost reverent as he looked it over, which gave me some hope when he said "I'd love to be your mechanic for this van". He worked at our VW dealership for 20 years, back when it was a good shop.

[jjvincent]

[debbiej]

yep, all true. perhaps like all things, there is a grey area too. owners who are willing and able to take an active part in maintenance, intelligent awareness of how their vehicle is performing and give an educated guess to an independent mechanic. I just have to find someone who will work with us. I did finally find such a person, and he knows and loves VWs, so hopefully we will have a good solution. We've owned 4 vanagons, one a westfalia, and this is our second eurovan, first eurovan camper, oh, yeah, a rialta too, who no one wanted to work on because of its size. As I think back, we always had to really shop around for independent shops who would work with us and understood the vehicle. But there were still some, Foreign Aide, Stuttgarts Auto Hause, and a couple of others. none of the very specialized VW shops are interested now though, which surprised me. The place I found is a diesel shop with a vw tech as shop manager. he seemed "honored" to work on my van, but we'll see.

[Zeitgeist 13]

A '95 EVC I recently serviced drove down to LA and started having clutch issues. The owner called around for area shops, but they said they wouldn't work on EVs older than '97. I think the five cylinder vans are just too unique with a bunch of NLA EV specific parts, which warrants concern from a biz perspective. Personally, I have to say that I prefer working on the newer VR6 models for a variety of reasons.

As someone who has owned and serviced lots of Vanagons, I've observed that the same early vs late model issues have carried over to the T4. In general, if you're going to buy and operate an old model vehicle, get the newest old model you can.
_________________
Casey--

'89 Bluestar ALH w/12mm Waldo pump, PP764 and GT2052
'01 Weekender --> full camper
y u rune klassik?

[CdnVWJunkie]

[debbiej]

It’s got the 2.4 AAB diesel with a 5 speed manual transmission.

[debbiej]

Well, we got lucky and found one. VW loving, diesel shop. Even in my own town. Here’s hoping I don’t see much of them, but glad we found them.

[WolfsburgAutoService]

The biggest issue for shops, like others have said, is not losing their shirts on a vehicle they don't know and maybe can't find information for as quickly as a Ford or GM etc. And a lot of shops take that a step further, and only worry about how much profit they can make on a job. "Specialty" cars are a difficult business model to make work well.

I'm the only shop in this region that actively works on vans and aircooled VWs. I've owned a 93 Eurovan and still have a Vanagon. (as well as numerous other VW/Audis) That hasn't come without a price. Two of the shops I've worked at before opening my own let me go or threatened to because we couldn't come to an agreement on how to make these jobs profitable enough for them. I handle a lot of these on a clock time billing basis, and there is still a lot of unbilled time spent finding parts or information. I'm not looking to make as much money as I possibly can like a lot of other shops, just enough to keep the shop running and food on the table.

So when you find someone who will work on your van, treat them well, be prepared for it to be expensive, and make sure that you are in constant communication with the shop about progress updates as well as cost.

[debbiej]

Thank you, and yes I will. I’m very grateful for his willingness to work on my van, and I really value his time and passion for unique vehicles!

[Glenn]

[jjvincent]

The above posts are correct. One thing a shop sees when it come to something oddball is they will have it in the shop for a long time. In the end, lose money on it or the owner abandons it for 6 months. The shop I worked at part time literally would not work on Eurovans (even though I had one). They knew. Better to crank out 5-8 Hondas, Subarus and Toyotas per day on a lift as opposed to having that EV just sitting there.

If you are lucky, you might find a shop that pays that part time guy just by the hour and not flat rate. Plus that guy is an older one that has lots of experience and can get the job done right. For example where I worked, we had a frined of the owners that bought a fully restored 64 Beetle. It really wasn't fully restored but it looked shiny on the outside and that was enough. The owner was told by a guru (from the Samba) that it needed a master cylinder. Owner bought it and wanted the new one put on. Real issue was the front wheel bearings were loose and all of the brakes were out of adjustment. Fixed that and nice firm pedal. I guarantee if someone else in the shop did it, why would have replaced that master cylinder and then claim the new one was defective.

It becomes a crapshoot. I do say this, if you see a shop (especially VW) that is full of VW's, take a pic and then come back a week later and take another pic. I bet you'll find 90% of them never moved. This means people use those shops as free storage as they can't make the decision to fix them.

Having grown up in the car repair industry, you need to make money and if you need to be proactive on getting the parts, that will make it better. It was like the Pantera we had in and needed tie rods. The owner got them overnighted to us and it was out the next day. Thus it wasn't taking up shop or parking space. I worked on it a number of other times because he knew that it was not a storage area for his car.

[02Berry]

For the only part-involved repair I've had thus far ... door latch replacement ... the shop diagnosed the problem the same as I had done, showed me the URL where >I< could order an OEM latch from Latvia, suggested I buy a matched set for left & right, even though only the right had busted, and when the parts finally arrived (slow boat from the Baltic, truck across the US), we scheduled the repair.

In the interim, of course, the car was in my possession and usable, except for the passenger door.

(Yeah, I know, maybe everybody else would've done it themself, but I'm not that guy.)
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Learned to drive in a '67 Splitty.
New to '02 T4 EVW world.
Third generation camper family.

[Abscate]