MikeK wrote:Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like if you own a VW, you should know how to fix it yourself.
Not so much with the modern ones as the computers have become a bit much, but anything pre-2000.
Well the short answer for this is, yeah, you're wrong.
Longer answer is a little more nuanced -
While it is true that lots of VW enthusiasts are "shadetree mechanics" or whatever, there's plenty of folks who just enjoy their vehicles and I've found the folks around here in the VW club to be a pretty diverse and accepting bunch of folks whose main criteria is that that you have some appreciation of the craft of VWs. Though I'm not that much into it, I really like the fact that the folks are remarkably non-judgemental in my experience. Just nice folks who enjoy VWs.
I realized that a VW Westy would fit a lot of my needs and decided to give it a shot with one that was in good shape that I found on CL. For a while at first I thought I'd get into working on it myself - check out the site Samba and you'll see that lots of folks do and lots of folks use good mechanics too. You can order parts and DIY stuff yourself, which can be fun, or, when it's in for inspection, which you can't do yourself, and a taillight is out, you can pay your local shop that does your minivan and other car to take care of the light issue and change the oil. Sure, I could change the oil for about half the price and 5x the hassle. Not worth it for me. Given that I also am not a trained mechanic, I'm certainly leery about trying to do something like replacing the fuel lines - yup, I can do that but I don't have a lift, or the tools. Paid a professional to do it. All in all my Westy is reasonably reliable - sometimes it is tweaky and I do change some of the fuses that blow out myself, but overall, it rolls down the road nicely, and I enjoy the hell out of it. Did change the battery myself and do a bit here and there. It is the first vehicle that I enjoy for more than a simple means to go from point A to point B.
Finally, to apply the same logic, I live in a house built sometime between 1924 and 1936 - I do a little work here and there but hire folks to do work well instead of half assing it - amazingly nobody on my street is a carpenter either... I flyfish reasonably well without building a rod from a blank, guides and thread, canoe and kayak without building my own boats or hand making paddles. Somehow it seems to work ok for me...