uncle t…you forgot a huge reason GM killed Olds…They did not sell any more! Olds designed old mens cars and nothing else. Remember, you can sell an old man a young mans car but you cannot sell a young man an old man car.
And they didn’t know when to stop.
I’ve had 2 before they were taken over by GM. Both were great cars. My neighbor bought a post GM Saab and got stuck in his driveway. The tires were too small. GM managed to screw up a good car in a host of ways and made an interesting, reliable and somewhat idiosyncratic joy just another pience of GM crap. Ford made the same mistake with Volvo. I bought a S80 twin tubo and had nothing but expensive problems untiil I got rid of it and bought another Subaru (the first Subaru has 197k on it)
“Ford made the same mistake with Volvo.”
Trust me–problems with Volvo reliability predate Ford’s ownership by decades.
My '74 Volvo, bought new and maintained better than Volvo’s recommendations, was the absolute worst car that I ever owned. To give you an example of just how bad it was, my next car after the Volvo–an '81 Chevy Citation (one of GM’s notorious “X” cars)–was a vast improvement over the Volvo.
Yes, the Citation had some problems as it aged, but they were far fewer than the Volvo’s myriad problems, and I spent far less money keeping the Citation going until I sold it.
VDC, appreciate your Volvo experience, and it would seem that when emision controls were imposed, the reliability went downhill. In 1970 I worked in an office where a father and son co-workers both had those square box Volvos. They seem to like them and persuaded another engineer, who had a Swedish wife, to buy one as well. He had trouble with the fuel system, but they drove the car for about 8 years. The bodies were good, and since we lived in the rust belt at that time that was a real plus.
I have ridden in many older 1970s era 240 series cars in developing countries. The last one had 800,000 km (500,000 miles) on it was was purring contentedly. These cars did not have to meet any of the safety and emission regs, and were built the old way. Also,labor is cheap in those countries; an expat friend has a late 1970s station wagon completely refurbished inside with leather upholstery.
It seems the glory years for Volvo were 1948 (P-444) to about 1970 or so.
I drove that Volvo for 8 years, simply because I did not have the money to replace it until 8 years had elapsed.
The first problem that cropped up was a lack of heat. After three failed repair attempts, the dealership finally discovered that the control cable connecting the temperature control knob with the valve on the heater core had never been installed. Really great assembly quality, wouldn’t you say?
When the ambient temperature dropped below ~30 degrees, the grounds in the dashboard and in other areas would become flukey. The result was very dim dash lighting, very dim headlights, and no functioning gauges until the car warmed up. As soon as it warmed up, VOILA–full power to all of the problem areas. The dealership never did resolve this one.
After the warranty expired, it began to burn oil, and by 60k miles, it was consuming 1 qt every 600 miles. After several attempts to reseal the transmission, the shop finally gave up and refunded my money. The result of the tranny situation and the oil burning was that I had to carry quantities of motor oil and tranny fluid in the trunk at all times. When I went on vacation, I actually had to limit the amount of luggage in order to make room for a case of oil and a case of trans fluid!
The Bosch electric fuel pump would burn out every 12-13 months, so I got really good at replacing those items. The Constant Injection system was a royal pain and needed to be worked on very frequently.
The car would not pass NJ’s emissions test until it was specially tuned for low emissions. However, when tuned for low emissions, it ran really badly and had little power. The result was two timing adjustments per year–one prior to emissions testing, one after.
Even the paint was crap, and it was totally “chalked” after about 2 years. The only things about the car that I enjoyed were the brakes and the seats. I have to say that I have never again had a car with such comfortable seats. Once other manufacturers went over to 4 wheel discs, I had cars with brakes that were just as good, but in those days, Volvo was ahead of its time with braking. Unfortunately the seats and the brakes did not make up for a car that, overall, was of incredibly poor quality, and this predated Ford’s ownership by several decades.
Sorry to hear about your experience with your '74 Volvo. I think they had some issues in the 70s, but the 240 series was bulletproof from the early 80s until its conclusion in the mid 90s. The 2.3-liter 4 cylinder was simple and super reliable. After 1986, Volvo started dipping steel body parts in zinc. That essentially made them rustproof. To this day, there are still several 80s and early 90s Volvo 240s running around this particularly salty area of the rust belt, many with 200,000+ miles on them.
My father owned a 1980 Volvo 240 with a 2.4-liter VW diesel engine and auto. transmission. It was burning oil and the tranny was slipping with only 60K miles. Everything else about that car was so well-built and so well-engineered my father didnt want to part ways, but he did because of the VW powertrain. That tank once pulled over 3,000 lbs. of wire fencing and posts out of a muddy parking lot that 4x4 trucks were getting stuck in. I was only 10 years old and still remember my father pulling the trailer out of that lot with a bunch of guys with cigarettes watching in awe as the rear-wheel drive Volvo eased its way through the spinning wheels of Ford Rangers and Chevy Silverados…
Lest anyone think that the GM takeover of SAAB is something that has only recently happened, GM has had a stake in SAAB for well over 30 years; clean back into the 70s.
Consider the fact that some 70s/80s era SAAB 900s used a GM steering rack, GM R4 air compressor, and the transmissions are not made by SAAB but Borg Warner.
Before that, the SAAB V-4 engines were built in England by Ford Motor Company and the in-line 4 engines were manufactured by Triumph.
My Triumph powered SAAB 99 could hold a tune up for so few miles, spare points were standard fare in the glove box.
Sounds to me like the tranny started to slip for good reason !
The only thing is, I think it’s GM that we should have let die in peace, and let SAAB fend for itself.
Really too bad to see the demise of a distinctive brand known since its inception for outside-of-the-box design,technological innovation and quality manufacture. This may be parochial thinking but I would cast a jaundiced eye on any Saab “made in China”. Wished I could have owned one (preferrably a turbo convertible). Farewell Saab. Hope Volvo can maintain the Swedish standard.
Contact points are contact points and any set of properly maintained points should easily last 30k miles.
If they’re burning up quickly that could fall back onto a faulty condenser or a condenser not appropriate for the style of driving.
If they’re closing up too soon that falls back onto not being maintained properly by applying distributor cam lube to the distributor shaft.
Odds are they were supplying the extra set of points because that could be a hard to find item in many places whereas spark plugs can be gotten anywhere.