Third time a charm?
UPS, with the utmost wisdom, instead of shipping directly from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, rerouted our parts up to Sacramento, Reno, and finally to Las Vegas – all to avoid a single pass being closed for a few hours last Friday. They were further delayed by the New Year holiday, meaning we did not receive our parts until Thursday – six days after placing the overnight order. The parts would have gotten to us soon if they had *literally* done anything else. Even leaving it on the side of the road outside of Los Angeles would have cost us less time.
Finally though, on the second, we saw the box get dropped off at AAMCO, which has been our home for just under two full weeks now. We grabbed our laptops and some dog food and ran off to the nearest, and cheapest, hotel so they could have the van to complete the work – again. Although there was a real possibility of having it by the end of that day, we chose to take the more relaxing approach and let them have the van overnight and through the following day. This, just to avoid them rushing the job. I’d much rather them spend the extra time and have it fixed properly this time.
Big Blue was handed off to us at 3PM on Friday. We happily drove the perfectly working van to the grocery store and a final meal before restarting our journey towards Arizona. The sun had set by the time we started heading South out of town but we didn’t have far to go – only about an hour away is a rest area that we were both looking forward to getting too. Unfortunately, after only a few miles outside of town I began to hear a slight whine. At first I brushed it off as my own over sensitivity, but after a few more minutes it was dead-clear; The rear-end was beginning to make noise again. By the time we turned around to start back towards to AAMCO that we just left (which is no closed until Monday) all hopes were doused. We were broken down AGAIN, with the exact same problem that AAMCO has fixed twice now. We made it only to a casino slash truck stop on the edge of town (the very one we came too two weeks ago in the Uhaul truck) as the noise was growing to severe to make it all the way back.
For the first time in my nearly 10 years traveling in Big Blue, I can truly feel the pain of all those Vanagon owners, and it seriously sucks.
Bummer. Maybe if the person who did this repair gets a look at it they will see what is now causing the failures… Good luck guys!
I think we all know exactly what is causing the problem; the pinion nut (the one single nut that holds it all together and in alignment) vibrates loose over time, which then allows it all to come out of alignment and destroy everything inside the rearend. Just a single, stupid nut.
How do they lock the nut? It’s pretty important, I’d think there would be a safety device on it of some sort. Maybe a better grade of locktite?
Just torque (200+ ft lbs) holds the nut in place. No cotter pins or other safety device. Why the shops do not use loctite I do not know
How frustrating! My goodness, I am starting to wonder if AAMCO hires certified mechanics or certified monkeys🐒
I am trying real hard to be understanding of human error playing a huge role with this job. It happens, I get it. Everything I read talks about how difficult it is to get right, but it isn’t easy to keep giving them the benifit of the doubt
Have you considered weight and balance? You may have too much weight in the rear or too much on one side.
Nothing has changed. It has always been rear weight biased. I can’t see why that would all of a sudden cause constant rear-end issues, but I will bring it up to the shop to see what they think
Oh, no! I was so hoping for a happy ending. Arizona will be here when you get here, though, 😊
Thanks!