On Willful Ignorance

Recently I was involved a rather nasty back-and-forth of the tempest-in-a-teapot variety, on another bus blogger's blog. To be fair, I wasn't being nasty, but I was being pretty know-it-all-y. (And I'm about to be know-it-all-y and stir up that teapot again, so I advise you to stop reading now if you don't like me when I have something I need to get off my chest. Also, there’s some swearing.)

The row had to do with a young lady's 1978 Westy, which said young lady had herself remarked several times (and, strangely, then retracted, then re-retracted, then re-re-retracted) on its inability to go much faster than 65mph, and that it certainly couldn't go 75 except "maybe downhill with the wind pushing us."

Our bus doesn't go very fast either, not by modern car standards anyway. We got it up over 90mph once, only when I (like an idiot) put it in neutral and coasted down Townes Pass into Death Valley. I'll not do that again, believe me, at Death Valley or anywhere else. We're quite content with the 60-65mph Ludwig can easily provide (with an allowance for topography), and are happy that we can crank it up to 75mph when there's the need.
When. There's. The need.

A Type IV bus (1972-1979) in good repair should be able to get up to 75mph on a flat road without breaking a sweat. That's the cruising speed given in the owner's manual after all (for god's sake).
(Incidentally, does my simple statement of that fact make it sound like I'm suggesting that Type IV bus drivers drive at 75 or faster whenever they can? Of course not. Not any moreso than my stating that my wife should be able to set the house on fire this afternoon means I think she should set the house on fire this afternoon.)

The thing is, a Type IV-powered bus that can't, under normal conditions, reach the cruising speed indicated in the owner's manual has something wrong with it. That's it. End of story. Period. There's no rational argument to the contrary (the whole owner's manual thing, remember?), no mechanic worth his tools can tell you otherwise. Maybe it's just poorly timed, or maybe it badly needs a valve adjustment, or maybe it has a dead or dying cylinder, or maybe it has some fuel delivery issue. Maybe it's something else altogether.
Any of these things are more or less serious, and any of these things, if ignored, will lead to the premature failure of the engine; generally, an underpowered bus will run hot even at lower speeds, and (excessive heat + aircooled engine) = dead aircooled engine.

Probably the best thing to do if your bus can't do what the owner's manual says it should be perfectly able to do is figure out what's wrong with it and do what you can to ameliorate the problem, at least until you can fix it properly (the fantastic introduction to the engine chapter in the Idiot Book says just that). What you should not do is follow the advice of dim-witted mechanics and well-intentioned but feeble-minded well-wishers to "just take it slow".

I should clearly state, again, that I've got no beef with anyone's taking it slow in their VW bus or their Corvette or their Yugo for that matter. Drive as slow as you want. Well, don't cause a wreck but you know what I mean.

Whether or not to take it slow isn't the issue.

 1978 Volkswagen Type II (bus) owner's manual, pg. 79

The issue is, whatever is making the bus run below factory specifications (that is, whatever's making it so it can't get up to 75mph) is not going to magically disappear if you "take it slow". It's not an omen from the VW gods and/or Jerry Garcia's ghost or something, a sign that you and the bus were meant to be together since you don't want to go fast and it can't go fast.

Personally, I don't want to run 400 yards in less than 2 minutes and have no intention of even trying, but something's wrong with me if I can't--what's wrong with me is that I'm about 20 pounds overweight. Now, since I don't want to run 400 yards in less than 2 minutes, does that mean I should ignore the fact that I'm overweight? "Hey, I can't, but I don't want to anyway! Woo hoo! Everything's fiiiiiiiiine."

Everything's fine.

Despite the tired, ridiculous hippie stigma that's attached to them and anyone’s best intentions to the contrary, Volkswagen buses don't run on positive chi, prayer, karma, or some horseshit like that. And really, it pi$$es me off that so many hippie wannabes, with their bogus lifestyle requiring them to own a VW bus, drive them into the ground for no fucking good reason whatsoever, remaining all the while so wantonly and willfully clueless as to not even know whether their bus has an alternator or a generator (painfully basic facts, kiddo). It's annoying to those of us who own them simply because they're great, fun to drive cars. You know, instead of owning them like a piece of some dumb uniform; part of an idiotic, pretentious affectation.


Good luck, young lady.