Hi Ho Hi Ho its to off the transmision shop I go.

[Sunny43.5]

Thanks Brian when I spoke to the man at VW I told him that I believed that because of Australia,s slack Consumer laws and the lacklustre authorities and their lack of power I believed that VW are just thumbing their noses at customers as they know that the consumer people have no power or ability to do anything against the big companies . When I mentioned that the class action was ongoing in the US with the Tiptronic auto that they fitted sealed for life to VW,s there I think he was surprised I actualy knew about it . I also told him that if we lived in China this would not have been tolerated as the Chinese Consumer laws came down very hard on VW because of problems they were having with over half a million customers VW were made to extend warranties to 160.000 km and ten years [wish our consumer laws were as good] What was interesting was an item in the Asian newspapers apparently three quarters of ALL complaints made to the motoring authorities over the last three in China were you guessed it VW owners . If you want a good read check this out http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/12/15/VWCA.pdf It is amazing that VW knew they had a problem with the Tiptronic auto and they just told customers that they should have found out about the problem while in warranty and as such the deny any responsibility for repairs etc shameful . It will be interesting to see what happens in the US .

[GUV]

with that in mind I will continue through other media to try and make a point , if I can get one outlet to climb on board I will be happy to make these Bastards squirm a bit .

Can you just hold off until we all sell ours.

[Racemag]

If I understand it the general van must be to your liking.
So thinking outside the box: you current van is worth little and a new van is the best part of $50k.
So have you considered an engine/transmission transplant? Put a reliable and cheap to service Japanses engine and transmission in there? It would be a bit of stuffing around, but such swaps are not uncommon and I'd imagine the cost would be around $10k

[Sunny43.5]

The days of that sort of job for me have long gone , in my younger days I actually transplanted a Holden 186 motor and auto into a 1600cc Toyota Hi Ace van in the early seventies , did every thing myself manufactured engine gearbox mounts exhaust and tailshaft big job went like the clappers though . The main issue with the current one is that the engine is fine and every other thing about the van is okay as well its just a shame its been let down so low in klms by a dodgy transmission with ahuge repair bill . We are currently looking at some alternative options , today we are going to buy the new T5 outright the choice I have to make is do I sell the current one and try and recoup the money spent or do I sell my T5 petrol 2.0 lt work van and keep the diesel auto T5 for work and just keep running it on and getting some use out of the money spent to date . The work van is a manual and does not have the stigma the auto has so I might get more money for it who knows .

[Racemag]

OK. We'll have to disagree on the engine swap validity, such conversions still happen, but it is a lot of work and fewer shops do it.

[Racemag]

transmission donor? Vehicle Detail - Pickles Auctions Australia

[Sunny43.5]

Thanks for the link racemag we picked up the van on Saturday so its all fine now so once I have finished the conversion on the new one the old one will be sold privately .

[jfoldbar]

So have you considered an engine/transmission transplant? Put a reliable and cheap to service Japanses engine and transmission in there? It would be a bit of stuffing around, but such swaps are not uncommon and I'd imagine the cost would be around $10k

im very interested in this. can you pm me with more details. i tried to find out about this but couldnt find anyone that wouldnt stop laughing at me for suggesting it.

[Racemag]

Laughing...well I guess it depends on who you would ask to do it. It is never a small job and you would be forging new ground doing it...I would suggest finding out the amount of room, relationship of gearbox to driveshafts to engine. Base electrical system and fuel system. The see what you can get to fit in the space and seeing if the donor comes up or auction at pickles etc as salvage. Then check what a transplant would do for insurance and rego and if it needs engineering for emissions. It would be neither quick nor easy, but could be rewarding. It is very common to replace broken diesels in transits post 2007 with commodore v6 and five spd auto on LPG.