Good Deal?: $3500, 2000 VW Eurovan 150k miles With Solar?

[pipsta]

It looks clean and had 1 panel with a yeti 400 powerstation. Ive heard VW's are money pits, is this true?

 

[bullfrog]

Yep pretty much, and the newer ones don't have much carrying capacity I believe. I didn't see any information specifics in the post, so hard to give an opinion, it may be worth more than that for parts as they are required often and expensive! LOL!!!

 

[highdesertranger]

I sure wouldn't want to depend on one. highdesertranger

 

[txmnjim]

It looks clean and had 1 panel with a yeti 400 powerstation. Ive heard VW's are money pits, is this true?

 i've heard some eurovans had some issues but i'm sure that's probably a generality.
my 1987 Vanagon was pretty dependable once i spent thousands fixing it up. like most
foreign cars, parts are more expensive and a good mechanic can be hard to find...
good luck, jim

 

[Timmy Hawk]

I have owned 2 VW vans. The first was a '72 and the second was an 84 Westy.
The price seems pretty low imo.
But regardless ... they can be great vans.
If you don't enjoy turning a wrench on your vehicle, don't buy a VW van.
You will not just buy that van and drive off into the sunset, of that, I am sure.
A VW van is a lot like a relationship, if you're not willing to work on it, you won't be going far.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

[Firtree]

A Eurovan is Totally different from a VW van of very early ‘90s and earlier.

Very limited import numbers, so very few in junk yard for parts, very complicated compared to before, parts hard to find and hugely expensive, often hard to even import, very, very limited dealer and independent mech support.
There were very few VW dealers who could fix these vans. There was a list, other dealers didn’t have the lift or trained mechs to work on them and would not work on them.

When I had a somewhat minor issue in the middle of Nebr/WY and no one would touch (van less than a year old at time) right there knew this was not a traveling van regardless of how well it road. On our ‘03 correct tires became very difficult to find. It was a heavy vehicle and no tires to support. Dealers sold out their tire stock cheap as they would no longer supply, support the van.
Mechs that work on the older vans will not touch these. You might find some support on west coast in larger cities but of no use when you are in even somewhat boonies.

So No

 

[Van-Tramp]

I wouldn't drive a VW van (any year) if it were given to me for free. Constant repairs and hard to find parts for the Eruovans... run away.

 

[xeres]

It looks clean and had 1 panel with a yeti 400 powerstation. Ive heard VW's are money pits, is this true?

We still have a 2002 EuroVan GLS/MV - it's the people mover (all seats). DH and I added vinyl flooring and a bed. I love the size (it was a second car for us). The best years were the 2001-2003 with the larger engine.

Echoing the previous responses, you'll need a good mechanic if/when something major goes wrong. Good mechanics are not cheap. The issues you could/will have -- the transmission is the biggest. You're at the outer edge for when these would go out. I'd want maintenance records for the last 75k. Ours is borderline (it is now throwing codes that are precursors to needing the rebuild). We won't be keeping this for much longer so we aren't panicking about it.

This sounds minor but was the indication that we needed to look for another van: we couldn't get a headlight replacement when a rock chipped the glass. The older VWs (T3) have a big fan base with plenty of aftermarket parts. The EuroVan (T4) isn't so well loved by the  VW community here (USA vs Europe) and so support is thin.