people whom have run the older well built go anywhere reliable Volkswagens that were built over 30 years ago
It's an interesting perspective, which you find in any vehicle forum, club or set of enthusiasts... VW, Landrover, Ford etc...
The reality is that VW's (and most vehicles for that matter) have always been inherently unreliable. I've had many VW's over the decades and every one has had it's problems... In fact it's fixing those problems that normally start these types of group. A shared interest in sorting things out.
This forum itself developed as an offshoot of a Facebook page and website created by an early owner who did it to raise awareness of the issues he was having with VW and push them into action. (Both those have now passed into other hands as the guy no longer has Cali's)
Splits were about the worst vehicle I've ever seen in terms of reliability... but they were easy to fix, the same goes for the Bays. Even when they were nearly new, many spent an amount of time on blocks on peoples drives. They were not well built... I know, I've still got several... but they were simple and we love fixing them. The only reason we see so many still on the road is due to major restoration work by enthusiasts.
Our expectations have increased, the complexity has increased, as has the reliability... but also the cost.
Unfortunately when it comes to the Cali, we're talking about commercial vehicles, sold and serviced through commercial dealer networks which are set up to work with a particular type of client and it's not the luxury vehicle owner.
Trust me, VW commercial is better than most commercial dealers networks (and customer service) but that's still way off the private car market.
I remember my early discussion with various dealers 8 years ago when first looking... painful to say the very least but was expected...
Many of the comments on here I tend to agree with.
With the spilt from Wetfalia in the early 2000's due to the partial acquisition by Daimler-Chrysler, VW pretty much copied the layout of the California, put some serious automotive industry development funds and technology into it, giving something slightly different to the market. (With some of the associated issues) - I personally would have preferred a Westy version, supported by a company with a VERY long history in the camper market with an expected level of support from VW for the van itself. (I know many people wouldn't like this degree of complexity but I prefer people to be expert in what they do)
It's still a conversion, as we know but it's done on a dedicated VW staffed production line, but it's a small part of the commercial market. Unfortunately as such, the dedicated production line cannot be replicated when it comes to the dealer and service network, so we end up with normal (and worryingly above average) commercial support.
We have high expectations, driven by the cost and the clientele which are unlikely to ever be met.
It's only 2% of their overall commercial vehicle production/sales after all... we are VERY much a tiny minority.
Don't think this helps...
Rgds
Mark
