How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot Author: Visit Amazon's John Muir Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1566913101 | Format: PDF
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot Description
About the Author
John Muir, mechanic, author, and the publisher, wrote the original How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive in 1969. He died in 1977.
- Series: How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive
- Paperback: 480 pages
- Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing; 19th edition (August 29, 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1566913101
- ISBN-13: 978-1566913102
- Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.1 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
First, my credentials for this review. From 1971 to 1994 (with insignificant gaps), I've owned and driven three Vokswagen buses (not including a parts bus)and used this manual to keep all of them on the road. As of this writing, I'm driving my fourth bus. I've gone through four copies of the Idiot Book, using each one until it either fell to pieces, became illegible from grease and oil stains, or needed to be updated as I bought a later-model bus. It has guided me through six or seven engine rebuilds (I used my engines very, very hard) and God knows how many other procedures ... I think that I've done every single procedure in the book that applied to my particular makes and models. And using this book, I've done work on various WV bugs, buses, and squarebacks that belonged to friends of mine.
I agree with everybody who calls this the indispensable reference for VW owners. I also agree with those who point out its shortcomings. Muir quotes a friend of his, on a review of another VW book. as saying "I agree one hundred percent with ninety percent of what he says." That could also apply to my own feelings about this book.
As a technical manual, it mostly consists of solid information -- solid enough, anyway, to get you back on the road so you can find somebody to show you how to do it the right way. I've always advised a prospective repairer to own both this book and another manual (my favorite was the green Volkswagen Official Service Manual, also called the "Bentley"), read the Muir write-up first to get a general idea of what to do, and then compare it to the other manual, note the differences, and ask somebody why the differences are there. Usually it's because Muir assumes you're making do with a minimum of tools, or are too cash-strapped to make a proper fix.
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot Preview
Link
Please Wait...