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On 23 Nov 2005 at 13:00, Dave Hall wrote: > > Stranded? by a Type 3? NEVER! in 17+ years of driving Type 3's 10 of which > > were in the winter I got stranded all of twice, once at home by a worn out > > starter, once at home with a cracked distributor cap. > > In 41 years of travelling in Type 3s, I've not broken down irretrievably, though > I once had a self-inflicted braking problem that meant I had to release the > pressure in the line and subsequently use the brakes as little as possible. I guess my karma has not been as good as Keith's or Dave's. I've been let down a few times. My '68 had a bad crimp in the wiring harness at the FI trigger points. The car was nearly new and I knew nothing about it at that time, so I got towed 150 miles to the nearest dealer in Casper, Wyoming. Did you know that there were only 3 VW dealers in the whole state of Wyoming at that time? Probably still are.... That same car had the fuel return line fall off the gas tank one day; first I noticed a gas smell, then the gas gauge that was slowly dropping. I spotted a service station with an open bay and drove right in. They were surprised, but helped me out as soon as I pointed out the gas streaming out of the car. We ran the lift up and I got the hose back on in a matter of seconds. That was caused by the dealer mechanics who had been careless when changing the fuel filter a week earlier. My current '73 had a fuel hose break on New Years eve day about 15 years ago. I managed to fix that while standing in the parking lot of an Ace hardware store in central Illinois. That was NO fun at all! The temp was about 0F with a very strong wind. The hose was the very worst one, nearly impossible to reach, which explains why it was the ONLY one on the car that the PO had not replaced. I bought tools and hose to fix it at the hardware store. It took me about 2 hours to do this and it was so cold that I could only work about 15 minutes at a time before going into the store to warm back up, and I was still crying from the pain from working barehanded because there was no room for gloves. That same car quit about 4 blocks from our house once, when my wife was driving. I drove over there and found dirt in one of the trigger points. That was fixed in about 1/2 hour. It was an easly fix on a nice warm sunny day. In general, I find that the longer I own the car, the more reliable it gets. Most problems are caused by human carelessness or ignorance, while the parts themselves are generally quite reliable. -- ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~