Club 80-90 Forums

Hi

I'm new to VW campers and looking to buy a t25. What would be the best engine model to look for? Petrol/diesel, watercooled/Aircooled etc. Any advice welcome!

Cheers

thats a pretty impossible question to answer!

What would you prefer reliability/mpg/top end speed/pulling power (no not the down the pub pulling either!)/sound......

in breif..

Aircooled
sounds cool
tosh on fuel
slow!
parts are a bit harder to get
can be LPG converted

watercooled
more reliable than Aircooled
have their own set of faults too!
stronger/more powerful than Aircooled
can be LPG converted

diesel
stinky/smoky!
some of them are sooo slow time goes backwards in them
turbos can give problems
very economical
many people put bigger diesel engines in which generally speaking go straight in
best for reliability
some replacement parts like sumps etc are expensive and a bit hard to locate




hope some of that helps a bit



Doug

Forget going for a particular engine type... its all on condition... I would rather have a nice solid 1.6 air cooled than a rusty TD........ but as with anything that 17 to 30 years old its a bit of a lottery really.. at least they were built pretty well so anything looked after lasts and anything that has had work done well will be good...

there are lots of threads on here asking the same questions, the WIKI has info too.. so have a search....

Firstly Hi and welcome to this place from us in sunny (at last) Chester
You will find LOTS of info on here

I would say do you prefer Diesel or Petrol ?

The 1600 Diesel powered ones are very slow and the engine will have been thrashed by previous owners trying to keep up. The 1600 Turbo ones are better but still suffer as above plus turbos can be a cause of probs and are not cheap. Many folks fit the 1900 engines to their vans and apparently this is a very worthwhile thing to do. (though I am not suggesting you buy a van and then do this, the cost would be large - it's normally done after the 1600 engine has worn out.) They all are much more economical than an engine running on Petrol.

Diesels stink ! (imho)

Petrol engines.

1600 Aircooled = under powered and weak.
2 Ltr Aircooled = OK on power, expensive to fix if it goes wrong.

The heater system on Aircooled hardly ever seems to work properly.

1900 watercooled = OK on power, all round these would be my choice (and is )
Expect to cruise at 65 to 70 and average 20 to 25 mpg.
I thoroughly recommend having an LPG conversion fitted, many owners of these vans do this.
It results in roughly half price motoring (ie same as 45 to the gallon) and has no down side I can think of.
Costs around £900 and pays for itself in no time.

They can and do have their own "special" problems and when buying I would take a "WBX" ( = flat 4 water cooled ) expert with you to check the Head to liner seals, the condition of the water, oil, plugs, compressions, exhaust (£400+) oil pressure etc. Reason is if these engines fail you are often better off just going for a £1000 recon unit from Elite rather than stripping them and repairing them. Even a blown head gasket often than not results in a new engine for reasons I won't go on about here (yet)

Get a good engine and it will go for a long time and be very nice to own.

A lot of the above may be influenced by what usage you are planning.
Like daily driver versa 6 times a year off camping, rest of the time sat around (the worst thing to do by the way).

It has been said above, when buying a T25 the body is as important or perhaps more so than the engine.
Look for rust in the outside panel seams = bad news
Rust around any / all of the windows = bad news but not a fortune to fix.
Rust around the filler cap = bad news but not a fortune to fix.
Rusty rear wheel arches = bad news but not a fortune to fix.
Rust in the outside edges of the voids (spaces) in each side of the engine bay behind the rear wheels by the outer panel. (they often go there and many owners are not aware of it. If you find rust there the owner did not know about, it's a good way of haggling the price down ) - not a big problem, just usual body work stuff.

Keep the Q's coming.

Before I bought mine (5 years ago) a mate told me driving a T25 is a good stress buster.
He was right. You relax in them. You know you can stop almost anywhere for the nights sleep or just for a snack and a brew. The holiday starts when you set off, not when you get there

Oh one last bit of advice (for now), don't buy the first van you see.
There are plenty out there, look around and compare quality to price (and engine to engine).
Learn about what you CAN get for your money before parting with it.

.

Thanks for all this info all, really very useful. We're complete VW camper virgins and all we know so far is from the couple of owners we accosted at a campsite last week! A couple we spoke to said the turbo diesels were preferable to the petrol as they did more mpg, I guess its just personal (I've never driven a diesel anything). Its good to know that the petrols can be converted to LPG without too much expense too, I assume you can switch between LPG and petrol once installed?

So, I just need to find some willing engine expert to take with me when looking at these things I guess, as I don't know a great deal about engines!

If you get a diesel it take about a week to go anywhere, you also have to pre book to pull out at junctions.

Bodywork is far more important than engine choice, as all engines can be changed for a better more powerful one

I would go 2.1 as it has plenty of power even if it likes a drink, all other engines lack power

purplecrocs wrote: I assume you can switch between LPG and petrol once installed?

On the carb versions you only need to run on petrol occasionally (say once a month) to clean the system through and ensure everything's working.

On the injection system most are set up to start on petrol and then switch automatically to gas at a certain rpm.

All systems have a manual switch over in the cab so you can select which fuel you want to run on AND a manual bypass in the engine bay should the gas solenoids fail.

Hope this helps. Ian

Just to add an opinion from the diesel point of view:

Diesels are very economical
Diesels are very reliable
Diesel engines can be replaced by readily available engines from most mid 90's VW diesel cars for not much money at all
1.9TD vans are not slow
1.6TD vans are not slow
Diesels dont stink

Petrol parts are hard to get (some are even obsolete), t25 petrol engines were only made for t25's - spare engines are not cheap. LPG conversions are fraught with issues.

The best advice has already been given - body work is key. IF the bodywork is mint, then its worth changing an engine.

Good luck!

Ringo

Hiya Rich,

ringo wrote: LPG conversions are fraught with issues.

such as ? I've had 1 filler valve fail in 4 years and that was replaced swiftly and F.O.C.

Ian.

Ringo

I will take your

1.9TD and 1.6TD and race you in a 1/4 mile.

Bet you dont win

Ian Hulley wrote:Hiya Rich,

ringo wrote: LPG conversions are fraught with issues.

such as ? I've had 1 filler valve fail in 4 years and that was replaced swiftly and F.O.C.
Ian.

4 years here on LPG, never a single glitch of any sort

1/2 Price fuel bills =

see my sig for a good place to get it done. (they have a depot down south too)

Hey purplecrocs - where in the world are you ?

I've heard loads of people with issues - its not running on petrol anymore, its running like a dog, wiring problems etc. Fraught with issues maybe a tad harsh - but then it doesnt stop people saying turbos are prone to failure does it (yes some people have had turbo issues - just like people have had engines replaced ahem). In the same vain, LPG is prone to failure.

So really to be fair, in general - LPG is not prone to failure just like turbos arent - i'll retract my comment if you will

I can quite happily keep up with any petrol T25 thanks very much - although the 2.1 obviously has more power. I wasnt saying my bus was fast - its just not slow.

I'd rather have a diesel because i can get an engine for £150 - £250 and swap it in a weekend.

Just defending the diesel camp - there arent that many of us in 80-90 ;~)

Ringo

Volkswagen... Diesel
..
..
..
Nah!
flat four.. to the core!

ringo wrote:Just to add an opinion from the diesel point of view:

Diesels are very economical
Diesels are very reliable
Diesel engines can be replaced by readily available engines from most mid 90's VW diesel cars for not much money at all
1.9TD vans are not slow
1.6TD vans are not slow
Diesels dont stink

Petrol parts are hard to get (some are even obsolete), t25 petrol engines were only made for t25's - spare engines are not cheap. LPG conversions are fraught with issues.

The best advice has already been given - body work is key. IF the bodywork is mint, then its worth changing an engine.

Good luck!

Ringo

You've started summat now Ringo...

7 years and approx 150k miles on LPG and only one issue I had was a dead vaporiser... oh well... very rarely ran on liquid gold... I even wrote an article for VW camper and commercial mag some years ago...

parts for the wbx is not impossible and can be found and the situation is getting better... my little development program is continuing so should be some options available......

Overall conditon... thats the biggest factor...

ringo wrote:Just to add an opinion from the diesel point of view:

Diesels are very economical
Diesels are very reliable
Diesel engines can be replaced by readily available engines from most mid 90's VW diesel cars for not much money at all
1.9TD vans are not slow
1.6TD vans are not slow
Diesels dont stink

Petrol parts are hard to get (some are even obsolete), t25 petrol engines were only made for t25's - spare engines are not cheap. LPG conversions are fraught with issues.

The best advice has already been given - body work is key. IF the bodywork is mint, then its worth changing an engine.

Good luck!

Ringo

Ringo are you biased towards one certain kind of petroleum distillate?