Much to our relief we are at this point satisfied in our look into the recent problem with auto transmission conversions and are resuming sales of auto transmission kits. A potential problem that did exist with some of the v2.0s with insufficient torque converter endplay was remedied before the occurrence of the most recent case, which also had a failure after the appropriate fix was applied. It was this condition which called into question the validity of the fix, and caused us to stop sales to ensure it wasn't something we overlooked. We are satisfied that this is not the case.  We have compiled some information that we'll be passing along to our auto customers. In addition to talking to owners of the many vendors that make up vanagonland and deal both with engines and transmissions, we spoke with end users, and not just our own customers.  One fantastic side effect of having posted the suspension of sales was the quantity of calls we received from all over the country from end users, and very importantly across all flavors of conversions and engines.  Stories that otherwise would never have met our ears became available and greatly added to our understanding of the myriad of issues that can cause problems with the vanagon autos.  This is incredibly important since most of the "evidence" is low quality and anecdotal, quantity must be greatly increased to have any real validity and have statistical relevance.

Additionally we also had updates from our own customers, some with auto transmission problems we had not previously been aware of because the problems were clearly unrelated to the conversion(eg. undersized fittings for an external trans cooler getting clogged with debris) and were handled by the customer without our intervention. By our own statistics of the 191 Bostig conversions now on the road, v2.0 converted automatics(which are 11% of the total install base)  have a 20% chance of having a problem that necessitates the pulling of the transmission again, and this may or may not also include an additional rebuild or torque converter. This figure applies only to autos that were rebuilt/installed within the last year.   Prior to that the percentage is only  2% despite no hardware changes in the adaption/coupling of engine/trans, and we'd still like to find out why there has been a sudden rise in incidents recently.  There are no instances of an equivalent type of failure with either the 2wd or syncro transmissions that we are currently aware of, and these statistics fit well with our general "sense" even before we had compiled numbers.  We are also not alone in finding repeat problems for certain "lucky" individuals. The record worst case that came to light beats our own worst case, with the transmission being pulled 4 times, 4 failed converters from two different rebuilders, and 2 full transmission rebuilds.  In any case, we will continue compiling information and hopefully in future will be able to shed some light on helping to avoid some of these situations, but at the moment the best we can do is advise our customers as to what we found out, and set expectations appropriately.

Jim Akiba