Hello everyone,
A couple of weeks ago, I started a thread about a red and white bus next 
door to my sister in law's house. Turns out that for what the owner wanted 
for a '76 bus with the engine not installed, I can cover the difference in 
value between my Golf III GL and a Eurovan GL that I found at a local auto 
broker's.

The details:

'93 EV GL, 5 spd manual, front & rear AC, ABS, miles: 71,000. Asking just 
under $11,000. It originally came from Southern California.

This van does NOT have the convenience package of cruise control, power 
locks & power windows.

Since the van was blocked in by a half dozen other cars, I did not have the 
opportunity to drive it. I was able to run the engine which sounded ok and 
the exhaust and muffler looked ok. There was no damage at the jack points. 
I ran the AC which I thought was broken until I figured out the controls, 
the tires looked relatively new, but had different no-name brand pairs 
front vs. rear. The spare tire was worn on one side, could have been out of 
balance, or is this how tires wear with so much weight on the front end?

No sign of the cracked paint at the A and B pillars. The windshield did 
have a crack about a foot long running from the top left roofline to the A 
pillar. Has anyone ever had to replace a windshield on an EV? How much 
might this cost? A minor cosmetic blem on the rear bumper was the only 
other apparent flaw, where someone backed into something.

Since this EV has 71,000 miles, I am a bit aprehensive that annoying things 
will start creeping up like the timing belt, struts, clutch, etc. (All of 
the above happened when I took over a '80 diesel Rabbit from my dad at 
75,000 miles.) Any hints or suggestions from the EV crowd about what else 
to look for? Or should I save my money and continue to look for one with 
less miles? A similar EV with only 42,000 miles at a local dealer is listed 
at $16,000.

Should I decide to go for this one, is that totaled EV still up in Alaska?

And a question for our European Caravelle owners: some time ago I noticed 
an aftermarket computer chip advertised in a British car magazine for the 
Caravelle (EV) to increase the stock 109 hp to 130 hp. Has anyone ever had 
any experience with this? Maybe with a new chip and a Projekt Zwo sport 
exhaust, it might not be too slow off the line....

Thanks in advance for all your help (and patience),

Matt Dekker
mdekker@eskimo.com