Is your van SAFE?

[Joe VW]

I had an accident with my 86 vanagon. Going around 40mph An old man in a 4 door Lincoln or Ford ltd pulled right in front of me and stopped- No where to go. I hit his rear quarter and spun him around facing the other direction, he was ok,his car was totaled and had to be towed. I was wearing a seat belt and was uninjured. I expected to see my front end destroyed, but it wasn't. I was able to drive home, no leaks and my alignment was still ok.
The insurance co. considered it a total though, due to age. So I took the money and bought it back, replaced 3/4 of the front end from a junk donor. I was amazed at the difference between the vanagon and the early buses I have owned. The used front end took 4 of us to load on a trailer with much effort.
There are multiple boxed impact tubes that run across the front end. One is used for ventilation duct and the others are attached to the front body work. The frame has diagnal beams to the integrated impact bumper behind the outer one. It was a lot of work and a lot of welds.
While the later buses have some protection behind the dash there is just one layer of sheetmetal between the headlights. That said; I still miss my old bus
If you have good tires, your vanagon handles better than most people think they do- even at high speed.
I don't think twice about doing 80 on the highway in my vanagon . Just wear your seat belt, watch out for cops, and keep a safe distance. If you live and drive in a city, well that just sucks

[levi]

As coincidence would have it, late last night (about midnight), I avoided a hell of a wreck. I was in the left lane at an intersection waiting for the light to turn green. As it did, I happened to be looking at the approaching traffic on my left, and a dark suburban that was still coming pretty fast. So....I didn't go.
The car in the right lane DID go, and the people behing me laid on the horn. That suburban came through the intersection, 40-50, without touching the brakes, and clipped the left rear of the vehicle in the right lane pretty solid. The girls behing me must have said they were sorry for honking at me 10 times....could have been a really unpleasant night for me

[psych-illogical]

Love that cartoon Dogpilot .

Just chiming in here on the defensive driving part of the equation. As someone who puts a minimum of 10,000 miles a year on my motorcycles, I've learned to be a very attentive and cautious driver. I've put nearly 100,000 miles on my BMWs (fingers crossed and knocking on wood here) without a single accident. I definitely carry this mentallity over to driving in cars. Avoidance is the best safety feature. There are never any guarantees but we can all do things to significantly reduce the possibility of an accident.
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83 1/2 Westy waterboxer
'57 Beetle-sold
Coupla '81 BMW motorcycles (R80G/S; R100RS)
'96 BMW R1100GS

[Dogpilot]

The SUV is a myth on safety. The automakers perpetuated it, quietly. Every friend I have, who has been in an accident in an SUV has been injured, much more than expected. Personally I have watched a Mercedes M500 making a left turn at a light (sneaking by as the light changed) get clipped on the rear by car going through the light. It flipped and rolled once, and came to rest on its side. The fire deptarment had to use the jaws of life to get them out. All were injured.

This was a 20 -25 mph accident. I got to watch the entire drama, trapped as I was in the left turn lane, for about 45 minutes. I just love it when our law engorcement, get into a little coffee clutch, and stare at the accident, while the highway just backs up. Somehow, the art of traffic direction seems to have been lost.

If you look at the cut away diagrams of the Vanagon, VW did some nice engineering on beefing up the floor and front. It is kind of like a rolling batttering ram. It is a versitle design that allows itself to be modified, like the westy and syncro or this:

_________________
Geology with a Syncro rocks!
86 Syncro Westy AKA "The Bughunter"
98 Disco I
08 Range Rover SC
08 VW Rabbit S
1951 O-1G

[wbx]

[mikegoode]

Vanagons DO have a crush zone. So do 1973 and up Buses. VW really went all out when it came to safety on the Vanagon. As for handling and manuvering, Road and Track even in the early 90s declared it to be the best handling van on the market, one that is fun to push through the twisties

[Paintedbus]

imho, safety in a vanagon depends largely on how you drive.

I personally drive like an old lady... If you compared me to anyone else on the road around here, i am by far the slowest, most cautious driver out there, usually topping out at 65 on highways and always under the speed limit elsewhere. Because of this, i have been able to avoid countless accidents with people in brand new awd luxury cars who could easily buy another after they wreck themselves.

i am proud to say that at 20 years old, i have a perfect driving record (no accidents ever/ never been pulled over) even though i only have owned vw busses (71,78, 82,87) two of which were hand painted. (everyone says that attracts cops?!?)

every single one of my friends have gotten into accidents both older and younger than me. both my dad and step mother have gotten into accidents recently, along with my step sister and brother (he consistantly drives his honda pos off the road)

however, i live by the saying that you have to "expect the unexpected." So everytime someone has thier turn signal on, or waves me on etc, i think twice about it before i act. and in doing so have saved my ass many times. as someone said before, the most important safty feature is the nut behind the wheel...


but what do i know? i am just a kid.
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Champagne Edition Roadtrip monster "Juakali"

~"Paintedbus" Ken~
The Mobile Muralist
WWW.PAINTEDBUSART.COM

[HerrBGone]

Don’t get me wrong… I like modern Subaru’s. They look like nice cars and have all the safety features you mentioned. My old Subaru was a POS. I bought it very used and in rough shape. Paid $450- for it. It got me to and from work for 6 months after my 20 year old Suburban’s motor blew up like something going down the back straight at Daytona. I couldn’t afford to fix it at the time, so I settled for what I could afford. That particular car was a piece of junk. The front end was worn out, the body had cancer that got covered over with metal tape to get it to pass inspection and the whole car was a crumple zone. It was too old to have had air bags. It was the closest thing to a death trap I have ever owned. It served its purpose while I owned it, and I moved on as soon as finances would allow. I am six feet tall and I weighed 275lbs back then. I also have back problems. Just getting in was painful because of the twisting motion I had to put my back through to maneuver in through that small drivers door.

With all that going against it, I don’t hate that car. Like I said, it served its purpose. It even saved my life one day!

* slow dissolve to a rainy day about 6 ½ years ago on Rout 128 south in Waltham Massachusetts *

There I was going down the second lane of four or five roughly keeping pace with traffic in my lane when the sky just opens up. “And for forty days and forty nights…” It was a cloudburst of seemingly Biblical proportions. I had a Class A motorhome to my right and a semi was passing me to my left. We were all going around seventy. The semi a little more, the motorhome a little less. And there I was trapped between them in my beat up old Subaru. As the rain pounded on the windshield with the wipers going as fast as they could to try to let me see the road at least in momentary swipes, the ruts in the pavement filled with two or three inches of water. I was boxed in. I couldn’t move to either side to get to higher ground. Then the front wheels started hydroplaning. The car was skipping from tire to tire, first the left was off the ground then the right then back again. There was no place to go. If I slow down I’ll get run over from behind by the SUV that’s tailgating me. If I spin I’m dead. As the first pangs of panic started to creep into my conciseness I had a flash of inspiration and yanked up on the handle to engage the shift-on-the-fly four wheel drive. The got the front end to settle down. The car became controllable again and I was able to finish passing the motorhome and get out of that lane. After a couple minutes the rain died down to a normal August thunderstorm and we all continued on our way – me in four wheel drive.

If the old Subaru hadn’t had shift-on-the-fly four wheel drive I might not be here to regale you with this story. I may have ended up as part of a crumple zone.
_________________
HerrBGone
(AKA: Dave)

A fellow wanderer on the road less traveled

Fritz, '71 Superbeetle
Galileo, '98 New Beetle
Thunder, '85 Vanagon Westfalia (full camper)

[amtjk]

Never said it was a deathtrap. If I didnt think that it was reasonably safe, I wouldnt have bought it. But I sure dont feel that its safer than my other vehicals. Survivability is not solely based on mass and height. My opinion is simply that a 20 year old van is likely, not as safe as a highly manuvuerable, modern, AWD vehical, which has been designed with safty as a focal point.

Feeling safe and statistically being safe are two different things.

art

[mightyart]

[amtjk]

As I said, its all relative. We cant sleep and cook in our Forester, so we are living life on the edge and driving a Vanagon to recreate in We drive slow and in the right lane.

art

[mightyart]

[amtjk]

Our Subarus are an '04 Forrester XT and an '06 Imprezza . What makes them safe? How about crumple zones, Airbags/curtains, ABS braking, low center of gravity, and the awesome AWD. We live in the hills and the wet and the avoidance control is something truly stellar. If I had been only driving a Westy over the past couple years, Id at least have beat up front end from the deer I would have hit, since a panic swerve would have been impossible in it.

A Vanagon is simply less manuveurable, less sure footed and brakes and handles poorer than any of our other vehical, so I consider it less safe. Its all relative.

art

[mightyart]

[HerrBGone]

I had an older Subaru about six years ago that was made of compressed rust. I understand the newer ones are much better. That said even the new ones can only do so much to protect you in an accident. I live near a very bad curve and there are accidents out there all too often. One of the most recent was a one car crash that involved a couple year old Subaru wagon driven by a relatively inexperienced kid who lost control trying to avoid running over a fox that ran out in front of him. He spun across the road and went sideways into a phone pole. Hit just behind the front passenger side tire. If the kid in the passenger seat hadn’t seen it coming and squirmed sideways pulling his legs up over the center console and out of the foot well area he would have had serious leg injuries. There was major intrusion into the passenger compartment that just about eliminated the passenger foot well to within inches of the center console. As it was they were both wearing their seatbelts and they both walked away with barely a scratch. It all depends on how you get hit and by what. The variables are far too numerous to protect against every eventuality. I try to take it easy in my Westy, in all of my cars actually, realizing full well that all to many other drivers out there think they’re on the road course at Indy.
_________________
HerrBGone
(AKA: Dave)

A fellow wanderer on the road less traveled

Fritz, '71 Superbeetle
Galileo, '98 New Beetle
Thunder, '85 Vanagon Westfalia (full camper)

[amtjk]

The safey factor was and still is a big concern to me. When we bought our 85 Westy, the first and formost thought was safety enhancement. No matter how you look at it, a van such as this, isnt the least safe vehical but isnt very high on the list. BTW, we own 2 Subarus and a Volvo so survival is of importance to us.

My 5 year old uses a Britax Husky seat, even though many kids are now using just boosters. He sits in the center of the rear seat. A 5-point seatbelt is as good as it gets for a child. As a former conehead (SCCA prepped 87 Saleen) I can agree with the above comments on performance driving as the best way of learning avoidance. We also have travel with no projectiles. All our crap goes into two big plastic boxes that are secured to the floor with tiedowns. And of course tires. We bought new Michelins right after the purchase. The previous owner had no-name passenger tires on it. Headlights on in the day and all running lights functional.

I drive it so defensively that I feel like an old lady but I think thats just what has to be done. And I think most people have come to that conclusion too. One thing to note. When I went to the junk yards looking for parts, not one of the vanagon was wrecked. Every other vehical type has a couple of crushed siblings, but not the vanagons. That somehow made me feel a bit better.

art

[istewart]

My grandfather survived two crashes in Vanagons:

The first was in an '82 diesel. He was sitting in a driveway, and a guy in a Mitsubishi pickup drove up the shoulder of the road trying to pass traffic. He hit the van at about 45mph, destroying the front end of his little truck. The van suffered a broken hubcap and a couple of dents in the door.

The next time, my grandfather was pulling away from a stop sign and some guy in a Suburban failed to stop, turned in front of him, and clipped the front of the van. The van was pretty screwed up but not unrecoverable, and the front-seat passenger suffered a broken thumb. That van is still on the road today, and anything wrong with it is the fault of the fly-by-night bodyshop my mom took it to.

Now I wouldn't want to run a Vanagon into a solid brick wall at 45mph, but I think I would notice if there was a wall in front of me. On top of that, if I did so in a modern SUV which all the soccer moms believe are safe, I'd risk winding up with the engine block in my lap. Plus the front end of the Vanagon is slightly more substantial than the 1st/2nd gen buses, which were essentially the floorpan, sheetmetal, and hope. It wouldn't pass today's more stringent safety standards, but it's far from being a rolling deathtrap. (And if VW can build that goddamn Bugatti without conceding aesthetics for aerodynamics, they could build a very crash-safe rear-engined van.)

[ncwesty]

So here is my two cents. They really aren't that safe. I was involved in a head on collision in a 69 splitty and busted my foot up pretty bad. It was wedged between the floorboard and the front of the bus(what was left of It). Thank god I didn't have my seatbelt on. I watched the whole thing happen and was able to jump up a bit(I was the passenger) and save the rest of my legs. .This has not and will not stop me from driving my van(84westy).. Basically drive safe and watch out for all the other crazies.

Mike

[bljones]

[cloudbaseracer]

Thanks Damon, I am surprised more people have not chimmed in on this. Maybe everyone is just not willing to admit what you have or they believe the "test" reports. I do not know what to think at this point. I was glad that one gentleman posted his actual experience.

As many have said, it all just depends on the situation. Which is unavoidable for the most part. I mean can you really control what the 70 year old grandmother does before impact or how fast the 19 year old runs the red light?

I do worry that you are more correct but I am open to ther real world situations.

James