1988 Westfalia sputters and skips after hitting rough roads

Asked by Neva Oct 08, 2019 at 03:30 PM about the 1988 Volkswagen Vanagon GL Camper Passenger Van

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I have an 88 Westy with a mysterious problem that no one has been able to fix. When I travel over rough roads (cattle guards, potholes, etc.) my van freaks out! The RPMs start jumping around - from below 1000 to over 3000, the engine loses and gains power repeatedly, and the car lurches almost to a stop and then regains power again and again. This only happens on rough roads. Sometimes if I pull over and shut the engine off, it seems to reset things and fix the problem, but not always. It can last for miles! Any ideas what is causing this and/or how to fix it would be much appreciated

5 Answers
10

GuruKNS52 answered 4 years ago

I had that problem also. After crawling all over the van, it seemed my negative battery cable under the passenger seat was rusty/dirty where it attaches to the body. Cleaned it up with some emory cloth and it seems to be working.

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Guru7ZJQQ answered 3 years ago

I had a similar problem w/ my 1990 Vanagon 2 Mechanics later, after one mechanic checked all the car ground connections, and gave up. The next guy checked the fuel pump turns out the fuel pump was going bad- worn.

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John answered 2 years ago

Mine would go fine 25 miles to work. On trip back home, about 1 mile from house I crossed a rough railroad track & cutting out began. Turned out my old spark wire from coil to distributor would get hot & flexible & short out when I bounced over tracks. Cheap, non labor fix after I exhausted all possible fuel tank-sock-,pump-caburetor possible issues.

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