Old Volvos are sometimes said to be ‘made for eternity’. Indeed, we know countless examples of 240s, 850s and 940s with absurd mileages. Thirty years ago it was time to put a 245 to the test with ‘only’ 275,000 km on the clock. A slightly different picture emerged.
Volvos ‘are indestructible tanks’, with 5 tons on the counter ‘they just ran in’. You probably know the clichés. They are often based on the truth. Old-fashioned Volvos were indeed often particularly reliable in terms of motor. The bodywork also often gave cause for confidence. Let the latter be exactly where the Volvo 245 from 1978, which we had as guest in Klokje Rond in 1992, was an exception.
A 1978 245 would of course be an old beast by now, but in 1992 we were dealing with a ‘only’ barely fourteen year old car. An age you wouldn’t turn your back on these days. Still, we got to see a Volvo that was on its way to scrapping pretty fast. A quite striking conclusion at the time, because we did not know the Swedes that way. However, this 245 was not a Swede, but a Belgian. Car broker Harry Habraken, who commented on the inspections at the time, noted this as an important comment: “The rust damage of the car (…) is certainly not representative of these Volvo models. Although the Belgian Volvos are less so in that respect than the Swedish ones. This one was put together in Ghent.”
Rust, that’s what this particular Volvo wanted. During the inspection, large holes appeared in several places. Not only on a door, but especially in the ground. At the rear, we could even put a full foot through the bottom and made the apt comparison to Fred Flintstone. It really didn’t look good. One plus: the load-bearing parts still seemed to be in order. The engine, a proven four-cylinder engine with carburetor, still snored (despite some oil leakage) with satisfaction. The carburettor did cause headaches, because it was not properly adjusted and, moreover, the car passed on too high a CO value, which was related to that. A good adjustment or overhaul of the carburettor could fix that, but the car was no longer worth it.
The Volvo did not only give the impression that the end was near because of the serious rust problems. Also some damage, a badly rotten skai interior in various places and various smaller defects made it clear that the 245 was really used up. And that after fourteen years and less than three hundred thousand. That’s not quite what you might have expected from a Volvo from that time.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl