The old volvo. A eulogy (repost for the day crowd)

"bob and john" (bobandjohn)
11/12/2014 at 13:30 • Filed to: None

I know eulogies around here are usually right after you lose a car, but dam, this car was such a corner stone in my life, I have to do one.

Meet what was once vicky.

She was my moms 2001 Volvo S40. This was the car I grew up in.

We picked her up back when I was but a young little guy, in 2002. I was 7 at the time. I remember riding to the dealer ship in my dads (then) relatively new saab. and frankly? I was disappointed in her at first.

I didnt care about transmissions at the time, so her smooth 5 speed slusher was just another transmission to me. It was better then the 4-speed that was in our saab at the time. Her motor was a quiet and smooth little unit. 1.9 liters of low pressure turbo'd Swedish engineering. The 160 horses she was throwing at the transmission was nothing in comparison to the 200 our saab was running with. She was...bland.

Her silver exterior was of the classy sort. 4 doors, a trunk that was higher then the hood. Those un-assuming 15 inch wheels were almost always covered in brake dust, and never had the honor of wearing dedicated summers. She always had either all seasons or winters. Which suited her, frankly. She was never a sporty machine. Never made any pretenses of being something she wasn't.

Like any car, she had a quirk or two. She always a faint oprange glow from her check engine light gently lighting up the dash. We tried many things to get rid of it, but to no avail. Not that it bothered vicky. She just kept soldiering on regardless. She never slowed down for that niggling little light. One of the lights behind her dash had burnt out, so driving on the highways at night, I could only see the tach and up to 140 on the speedo.

OH. another thing that didn't impress me. No boost gauge (like the saab).

She was a source of shenanigans for me and dad. We had bought some bullet holes sticker and a cap gun on april fools. Scared my mom in the morning. We also stuck some stuffed animals around the car, Like the trunk. the look on my moms face when she opened vicky up and had stuffed penguins and the like jump out at her...priceless.

She turned out to be quite the mobile office for my mother as well. She was teaching health and safety course for a little bit, and thus always had spare pens kicking around. I was tasked with cleaning vicky up one weekend. I pulled 47 pens out of her. Including 2 that where hanging out with her spare tire.

As well as mobile office, she LOVED to road trip. Even with a turbo, she sipped 89 fuel at a rate of 35 mpg on freeway, covering great distances with us inside in comfort. We lost track of how many times we tripped to montreal from Toronto. or how many trips my dad took her on for business. Or how many bike races I dragged her out to when i was finally able to drive. or how many times she tool me to and from my martial classes.

I had a lot of firsts and stories with Vicky. She was the first car I drove alone on the road. She was the first car I ever jumped. First time i got pulled over was with her, 3 days after getting my permit (thats a story for another time). She was the first car I hooned in the snow and the rain. I remember one particular night, I discovered that the speedo sensor was on the right, front tire.and thanks to an open dif and a heavy right foot, I had her going 250Km/h according to the speedo. She was also the first car I practiced handbrake turns in. She never broke on me either. I took care of her once I learn how to. I changed her oil and kept her wash fluid topped up. I made sure that her tires were never wanting for air. Even though she was my moms car, vicky was my girl.

11 years. Thats how long dear old vicky stayed with us. Over the years she accumulated THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND miles (560K km) on the original motor and transmission. She was a tough old girl.

Tougher then anything out there. Three times the world tried to kill her. Three times the world failed.

During her first year with us, she nailed in the doors by a drunk driver. We replaced her doors and continued on.

4 years later, she was rear ended on the freeway at 100km/h. She spun off the road and almost rolled over in the grass. But she stayed wheels down. after replacing the Rear bumper, She was back to daily duties.

The final incident came in 2009. A BRAND NEW BMW M5 that was being driving by a guy rushing home to show it off to his wife ran a red light in front of my mom. She served, but it was too late. Vickies front corner made contact with the BMWs rear wheel. The speed that the BMW had + the impact from vicky sent the BMW sideways, then it caught a ledge and rolled 3 times. The violence of the impact RIPPED Vickies face right off. Her hood, bumper, and right side fender and headlights were thrown with such force they actually dug themselves into a near by hill. Vicky herself was spun almost 180 degrees.

This, we thought, was the end of our be-loved vickie. BUT NO, the insurance company got her fixed, and she once again, rose from the ashes to roll another day. (if you scroll back up to the lead picture, you can see the corner of the plate that was mauled in that crash)

(not Vicky, but she looked similar, she was also missing the hood. )

But alas, not even the strongest of viking warriors could defeat mother nature. in 2010, She had developed cancer. Rust had begun to eat away at the inside of the rear wheel wells. It was to be expected of course. Vicky never had a garage to call home. She was alway left out in the cold, un-forgiving Canadian winters, and dealt with the salt on the roads for 10 years by then. She was getting tired. But her spirit remained strong! She continued to serve us faithfully until one day in 2012 when I came back home from school and noticed the temperature gauge was pegged in the red.

Shit.

We didn't know what was to become of her, especially since my mom had just come back from a longer trip with her, and we had the suspicion that poor Vicky was sweating the entire way. our fears were confirmed when I went to take her to a mountain bike race the next and fired her up.

My poor Vicky was dying. She was only running on three out of 4 cylinders until she warmed up. We took her to a mechanic down the street that had taken care of her for 4 years after the Volvo dealer we bought her from went out of business. He told us that her water pump had failed, and coolant had slowly leaked out over time. Her head was warped and would need about $2000 in parts and labour to get back to running condition.

My mom was due for a new car anyways, so I asked any of my friends of they would like a free car, if they managed to repair her. A friend of mine took her in, and together we tried to get her running again. I drove her 20km from my house to a garage where we could work. Little did I know that was the last she would ever run.

We weren't able to get her back together again. After we took out her cams, we moved a motor mount the wrong way and nearly dropped the motor out of the car. At that point, we just tore into her to gain a little more understanding of motors.

I still have part of her heart to this day. Her intake cam sits on my window still next to some pictures of me and my girlfriend at my (and her) proms.

I miss Vicky. She was that old dog you had. The one you grew up with. Never giving up, never going down until we had failed her.

I'm sorry. I failed you. and I regret it deeply to this day.
RIP Vicky

PS: All of these photos were taken in 2012. the last year we had her

DISCUSSION (24)

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 04:31

350k is pretty impressive, how many major parts did it need to keep running that long? I imagine it went through a couple turbos.

bob and john > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
11/12/2014 at 04:34

NOTHING. DIDLY SQUAT. that car was one of the most reliable things we had ever owned. couple of sets of brakes, lots of oil, filters, and tires...but no major parts replaced. (oh, and a trans flush at 200k)

EDIT: oh, and we replaced the radiator after the crash with the M5. but that was the only mechanical component replaced

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 04:43

Not bad, I wish every car could manage reliability like that.

bob and john > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
11/12/2014 at 04:55

That car was an absolute tank in all the meanings of the word. My mom cried when we brought home her IS, because it truly meant her Volvo was gone.

PRBot II > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 04:58

Kinja'd!!!

The M5 driver rolled three times?

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 04:59

I'd miss a car like that too. A car so dependable it lasted that long is a cool thing to have. Most cars you're lucky to pass 200k without replacing major parts.

bob and john > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
11/12/2014 at 05:02

yea. I get the feeling that the CEl was some code that we never read right (dad wasnt big on codes at the time) and if it had been functioning, we would have been warned about the water pump going and been able to save it.

oh well. lessons learned.

bob and john > PRBot II
11/12/2014 at 05:03

yea, he was moving at quite a clip and hit a ledge where the pavement changes after getting hit. that car....was not in a good shape.

PRBot II > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 05:12

Hmp. That's what he gets.

I feel for you. My mom used to drive an S40 as well. Many great times had in that car. I still have never driven any car as fast as I went in that thing back in 2001. 135 mph.

I've DD'd a few Saabs ever since then but still haven't cracked anything more than 130 mph. But to be fair to my Saab, I haven't really tried that hard. It does have more HP and torque after all.

Anyway. Nice post, man.

bob and john > PRBot II
11/12/2014 at 05:18

I think the highest i ever got that heap to was 185km, which is about 115

its funny, I still have the saab in the story as well. its sitting at a relatives farm right now.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 05:26

Yep, I always wonder why the temp gauge on cars doesn't have a really bright light to tell you when it passes normal. Some have a dim red light but nothing really noticeable.

PRBot II > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 05:30

Those Saabs never die!

Source: My Saab (3rd Saab now) won't die. I'm thinking about buying a Mustang, and yet my 9-3 still runs like new (not kidding) at 275,000 miles. What am I supposed to do, keep this thing forever? This is getting ridiculous.

Tinfoil Hat in a thunderstorm, now with added diecast > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 06:07

'oprange' I see what you did there, you meant it right?

Alex B > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 06:49

Great read. What was your least favorite thing about her?

edu-petrolhead > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 08:52

Great writing! I must confess the image below applies to me after reading it.

Kinja'd!!!

twochevrons > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 09:04

That's a really lovely story – thank you for sharing it. Seeing a Volvo attain that kind of mileage makes me hopeful that my 850R might last as long.

My family's Triumph 2500 was a similar story – we owned it for a long time, with many memories, and it was almost completely trouble-free for 22 years and 200,000km (not bad for a '70s car), right up to the day that it failed inspection on massive structural rust. I've talked about it before, but your post has me wanting to give it a proper eulogy. Thank you.

twochevrons > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
11/12/2014 at 09:10

Citroëns do it right, or at least, they did in the '80s and '90s. My Xantia had a giant light in the middle of the dash labelled "STOP" that would come on to alert you to severe problems (along with another light indicating what the problem was). It saved my bacon when I had a coolant hose spring a leak.

I'm surprised that more cars don't have coolant level monitors as well. My old Rover SD1 and my current Volvo 850R both have warning lights that come on as soon as the coolant level is below what it should be.

bob and john > Alex B
11/12/2014 at 13:18

Car could have used another 40 or so horsepower. But other then that, it was a greatcar

Alfalfa > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 13:44

Why do I get the feeling that the universe is trying to tell me to buy a Volvo?

By universe, of course, I mean Oppositelock.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 13:50

Our 240(that has been sitting idle for 7 years) was bought from a family that had totaled 3 times. Not crashed, totaled. The P.O. just wouldn't let it die, so it was rebuilt each time. We finally parked her after 300k miles, when she just wouldn't hold oil any more. I still plan on reviving her soon. After 7 years sitting, she is still rust free.

HeathJokerSick > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 15:24

Volvos are great cars. 350K is a lot. I still have my S70 and love it, peeling faded paint and all. These things are hard to kill. Volvo for life.

HeathJokerSick > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 15:26

Probaby the secondary air pump. Mines been out for the last 5 years. Still drives great.

PetarVN, GLI Guy, now with stupid power > bob and john
11/12/2014 at 15:43

Dude. JQJ213 bought a Silver 2000 V70R, and named her Vikkie. that's one uncanny coincidence on the name!

TDogg > bob and john
11/24/2014 at 17:38

Great read. Glad she served you well.