[Vwdiesel] Injection Pump talk ---( for Pump Gang mostly )

[Val Christian]

> You want perfection ?  ---get a Rolls.          =20

Gosh no!  In 1977, prior to buying my first Rabbit Diesel, I looked 
at the low end Rolls.  At the time, they were sold with maintenance.
I kind of looked at it as a long term buy, like I did a Rabbit.
(I also got allot of ribing from folks who thought it was strange 
that this "kid" was considering a Rolls, or a cheap foreign car.)

What I found out talking with Rolls owners, was that I should
only get a Rolls if I could get two.  Because one would always 
be in the shop.  There was this real nice gentleman, with a steam
heated garage with a turntable, who showed me his maintenance records
on all the cars he owned (20++).  Clearly the Rolls were hangar 
queens.  For the first year or two of their existance they spent
more time in the shop than in his garage or on the road.  The problems
were amazing.  Radiator solder failures, broken altenator brackets,
scraping of insulation on wires, door hinge pin failures, not to 
mention a few engine type failures.  

When I pressed the dealer, they allowed that I _could_ expect some 
downtime, as with any complex piece of machinery.  

The  conclusion I came to was that the Rolls might be a good chick 
magnet, but I probably couldn't afford champagne babes on a beer
budget.  The Rabbit would be more fun, and while the maintenace wasn't
packaged in, it was somewhat affordable, and I could afford to own 
several Rabbits over the life of the Rolls. 

There are days that I wonder how things might have been with the Rolls.
Certainly Stephanie and Gwendelyn would have been impressed.  But I
never even ended up dating them.  Furthermore, I would probably have 
gotten fleeced a bit more driving a Rolls than a starting-to-rust 
Rabbit, so the net outcome there is a little more.  On the other hand,
some things might have had different outcomes.  Oh, economically, if
the Rolls had been more reliable, the investment would have on paper
looked a little better.  I just figured the risk was too high.  
I couldn't afford to be without wheels, and having fun with all the 
babes, and flying all the airplanes.  Besides, I like a little dirt
under my fingernails.

Val