After posting some notes on a thread that started turning into a mileage concern, I decided to start a post about Volvo's with a lot of miles.

If possible, only post information about Volvos that:

• Have more than 250,000 miles.
• Stories are welcome, i.e. maintenance, etc.
• Picture are welcome.

To kick it off, I have to mention that the current Guinness World Record Highest Car Mileage car is an 1966 Volvo P1800. Here is the story:
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The highest recorded mileage for a car that we could find record of is 2.69 million miles by a 1966 Volvo P-1800S owned by Irvin Gordon of Patchogue, N.Y. Volvo said that Gordon has been the sole owner of the car since 1966, and plans on driving it until it hits the 3 million miles mark, when he may retire it, continue to drive it, sell it or donate it to a museum.

Gordon broke the previous mark in 1998, when the car was at 1.6 million miles, according to the Guinness World Records.


Hats off to Irv Gordon.

If you would like to join Volvo of Americas High Mileage Club, click here ( http://www.volvocars.com/us/top/abou...s/quality.aspx ) or contact your local Volvo dealer.

 

I purchased a '87 740 GLE while living in Japan (military). When the car was 9 months old, it was delivered to LA and I drove it across country to visit family and friends. By the time I arived in Little Rock Arkansas, I had put over 5,000 miles on it in 30 days. One weekend I drove from Little Rock to Albuquerque, back to Little Rock, then to Pittsburgh PA, then back to Little Rock. In 4 days I drove over 4,000 miles.

Picture at 388,600. 1987 Volvo 740 GLE


The car alwayS got about 24 miles per gallon no matter how I drove. City or highway.

I had about 230,000 before my 1st major repair. I had a transmission leak and had the transmission rebuilt. The cost was about $350. About that time I started skipping oil changes and would go almost 20,000 miles between oil checks/changes. I changed my ways when I ran it out of oil once. At about 325,000 I decided to replece the motor with a used one because it started smoking (bad ring). The cost was about $1,200 and it was a used motor that was suppose to have about 120,000 miles on it. At 388,000 I had a transmission mount go bad and messed up some plate between the motor and tranny. It was fixed with a few other things that cost about $600. The next day the transmission mysteriously went out so I had the transmission replaced with a used one, cost was about $700. Tires on the car would last between 80,000 and 90,000 miles (Michellen's).

A single mom asked me to sell her the car so I did, for $7.38. The car was in great shape and could easily go another 100,000 miles.

 

The white car in my Sig has I think at the moment(wifes so not in it much) 270K on it.
I will post some updated pics of it soon.
We bought it about 3 or 4 years ago with 180K on it and have been driving it since.
The car still runs and drives like it is only a few years old.

BTW RSPI my Boss had met Irvin Gordon twice. Once they actually tore the motor down at like 750K to inspect the motor for wear. It was in really good shape when they tore it down.

 

if I ever get the 850 back together it has over 300,000 on her.

 

Here is a rolling pic of the white one.(Ignore the shadow and my daughters head)

 

Bumping a great post from a few years ago. Getting close to passing the 200k mark on my 02 S60 so I am very intrigued with any other stories.

 

I'm a newbie to the forum and have owned (2) 240's that were over 250K (See signature)
The first one got a write up in the Brick online magazine after I submitted a story about the car when it was totaled just shy of 300k. It was VOL ROD a rat rod gunmetal grey 240 sedan. Not sure if pics or story is online anymore (this was roughly 5 years ago). I'll see if I can dig up any pictures. All I could find was my cars listing in the Volvo High Mileage Club #3335

the second I purchased with a broken odometer stuck at 265K, for $500. It was the first present my now wife ever bought for me, and that christmas I asked her to marry me. Unfortunately this car was bent in the frame when my roommate fell asleep behind the wheel and I pulled away from Volvo's for a while.

Just got my new Volvo 850 and plan on hitting that milestone as I put around 30k on a single car in a year with my hour drive to work each day. Clock sits today at 173k

 

 

Better change the requirements to "cars only" before someone posts a pic of their Volvo truck and says "I have 800,000 miles and it still runs coast to coast."

 

Since someone dug up this post, I thought I would add my car in. 1986 245, nicknamed Oleo (after the margarine stick). Will turn over 403K this week. Odo was broken for 7 years before I got the car; I figure another 50K was put on during that period. Most all the miles were put on it's first 10 years of life; then the car was relegated to 2nd car status and something for the kids to drive. Engine is original, head hasn't even been off. 4sp M46 manual, with elec OD. Engine burns about 1 qt between 5K oil changes, compression is just fine. It came to me with a 1 in. stack of service records .

 

I acquired a 1987 volvo 740 turbo wagon with 634000 miles on odometer and as my daily driver now has 636741 miles clocked. It has earned its name " Durablo " and is heralding from Kansas City.

 

My car came with 140k on the clock but looking through the service records shows that the odometer broke around 2005. It was used as a family and work vehicle, hauling stuff. The old owners said that at some point a mechanic estimated that it had 280k on it, which sounded plausible to them. So far I haven't noticed any oil consumption (Only have about 600 miles on it since buying) or smoke or anything. So this probably doesn't apply here, but it might.

 

No one is ever going to catch Irv and his P1800. I'm typing this, you are reading this, but Irv is out there driving, racking up more miles.

But DeVolvo was my 1982 240DL. I bought her new, and she never wore out. I never replaced a head gasket or did any other major engine or tranny work. I did go through a lot of clutches over the years, and she had that overdrive unit for the 5th gear that made for a tranny that was as big and heavy as I was - getting aligned with the splines with the car on jack stands and they tranny in a tranny jack was never fun. I also replaced nearly every moving part in the car at least once. It is a testament to the rock solid design of the 240 series that the only complaint I had was that the wiring to the fuel pump relay was undersized, and had to be replaced with thicker-gauge wires, as the stock wires slowly melted their insulation.

The high mileage was due to parents in Boston, and my living far away, in Florida, NC, and VA. Then when I moved to NYC, I was back and forth to VA often, in addition to Boston. Lots of highway miles.

I had to sell her, not because the car wore out, but because I did - I had knee surgery, and simply could not drive a standard in Manhattan NYC traffic any more, as one would shift in and out of neutral often. So I sold her to a fellow who was going to take care of paint chips and a pitted windshield and resell to an enthusiast. The leather was still nearly perfect after all those years, a tribute to taking care of car upholstery at every oil change.

I was very proud of the sound system, as it violated the nuclear test-ban treaty. No subwoofer, just lots of power, and good speakers. I also had very dark tint, so I painted the pillars to match, and used the "turbo alloy wheels" from the 1984ish turbo sedans, as I liked their looks.

Not great photos - all I could easily find were pix taken to prove that I was legally parked at a meter when I had gotten a parking ticket for being in a no standing zone.

The last photo in the set is the car dressed up with magnetic vinyl stripes, wings made from plastic and wood, and antennae so that she would be the "Bee Mobile". I'm a beekeeper, and we would decorate the car for symposiums and beekeeping workshops.

I now drive a 2004 v70, and the suspension is nowhere near as rugged, but the car is orders of magnitude more quiet, comfortable, and safe (with the eleventy-seven airbags and crumple zones). But its not "DeVolvo".

 

It has 323k and some change on the clock. It is a very dependable car. I do 90% of my own maintenance. The drive train in this car is very solid albeit the engine could use more power. I still manage to get 31 mpg on the highway at 65 and 28 mpg at 85. My next goal is 400,000 miles.

 

I was keeping up with traffic.....

 

Awesome achievement! Are you going for 500k?

Mine is just over 341,000 at this writing.

 

I picked this one up recently. The front suspension will be rebuilt shortly but its in otherwise remarkable original condition. Highest mileage on any my other Volvos was about 240K.

 

This is in reply to the post by "Old Bay" from December 4th (which happened to be my birthday). Old Bay - thank you for posting a photo of Rowan. I'm always glad to see her represented.

I was the previous owner of Rowan, prior to Old Bay purchasing the car from me a few weeks back. She is indeed a 1989 740. She was originally purchased by a high-ranking military officer while he was stationed in Europe in the spring of 1989. He and his wife drove her for many years afterwards as their only vehicle, and brought her back to the U.S. in the fall of 1995. From that point until late 2016, she was serviced exclusively at the local Volvo dealership, which meant that she always got good care. The original owners passed away within 3 months of each other in early 2017. I bought the car in Sept. 2017 when she already had 304k miles on her. I would have kept her indefinitely but I purchased a 1993 240 with the M47 and wanted to concentrate all my energies on that new-to-me car.

 

I purchased a new 240 in 1990 in Sacramento, CA. My wife and I both used it for commuting to our jobs for about 5 years and when we left for Germany the car had a little over 100,000 miles on the Odo. While in Germany I found out what the 240 was really designed for. It was an Autobahn cruiser! We spent 6 years in Germany and I found that while it was slow to get there it would cruise at 90 MPH easily and comfortably with 4 adults in the car and have just a little throttle left. I've seen 100 MPH on the speedometer a few times on flat, level Autobahn stretches. We cruised it all over Northern Europe and made a few trips down to the Balkans. We brought it back to California with us and it easily passed the emission tests and when I sold it in 2003 (to a college student) it had over 287,000 miles on the odo and still looked like new, burned no oil and was very comfortable.

I'm thinking that our next vehicle will probably be the Volvo XC40, which I'll purchase through the Overseas Delivery Program, so that I can take advantage of their round trip flight to Sweden and have two weeks to drive around Europe before having the car shipped at their expense back to California.

 

I'd not expect to get anything like a 240 longevity out of a present day Volvo. There is nothing but the name left. (Unless you pour tons of $ into it once the warranty expires). Modern European cars are designed to last 100k km, then recycled... Cars to the EU are an evil to be gotten rid of ASAP!