TheSamba.com :: View topic

Tue May 24, 2005 10:18 pm

Obviously this is a broad question, but curious how long the average (miles/years) air cooled Vanagon tranny lasts. I may take a look at an 81 w/ 15k on a rebuilt engine, but 150k on the tranny, wondering if I'd just be inheriting a tranny rebuild.

Thanks.

Wed May 25, 2005 6:14 am

I've got originals with over 200K and still not problems. Change the oil once in a blue mooner, what usually goes bad is the shifting bushings that make it hard to to get in gear.

VW has the 4 speeds pretty well over engineered but they do crap once in a while, a guy on Ebay has rebuilt ones without a core for 700-

Wed May 25, 2005 7:11 am

I have a 178k on mine, works fine.

Wed May 25, 2005 6:20 pm

Mine went out at around 128K... and those were probably 90% highway miles (very little shifting). I think average life is supposed to be around 150K miles. Some obviously more, and some obviously less.

A reputable rebuilder (e.g. AA transaxle) has upgraded components to address the common failure of the vanagon manual tranny.

-Damon

Thu May 26, 2005 5:19 am

air trannys like to spit out the mainshaft bearing. Easy to fix(if your me)Try to find a spare trans so you can sleep at night. For my bus I have 2 spares. My trans is at 211,900. Slight scrape going into 3rd on very cold days.