Vans, Volvos, Volkswagens, And More: Members’ Rides

Good day and welcome back to another iteration of Member’s Rides! Last time, we were up in Seattle looking at one of the most beautiful big coupes in recent history with David. That BMW is a great car, and David’s is in an especially tempting spec with red-on-red and a carbon roof. That’s a fantastic choice for a large, fun car, but what if you need a couple of cars that are a bit easier to move kids around in?Members’ Rides is where we share the cars and stories of Autopian Members. The potential to be featured here is a perk for Autopian Members of every level, from the ultra-affordable “Cloth” tier all the way up to “Rich Corinthian Leather.” Click that link and join today!

This week, we’re heading down to Houston to meet Frank. Frank is a consultant doing data analytics and cloud app development while being an aspiring stay-at-home dad. He’s also got a great collection of modern classics that might have our own Matt getting a bit jealous of one of them at least. 

How did you get into cars?

My dad got me interested in cars. He expressed his midlife crisis by buying a 1957 Thunderbird and dropping a 351W mated to a Tremec 3550 five-speed, with dual 2 1/2″ exhausts that each had a little token muffler. I learned to drive stick in that car. But mostly my high school ride was the family’s hand-me-down ’79 Coupe de Ville. I couldn’t take that with me to college, and suffered being without wheels for two years until I bought a sky-metallic-blue 1986 VW Golf 5-speed. It was a great car for me while a student. It was cheap, fun, practical, and pretty reliable.

What is currently in the garage?

• 1993 Ford Club Wagon Chateau 5.8L
• 2004 Volvo V70 2.5L
• 2002 Honda Civic DX 1.7L 5-speed
• 2004 Volkswagen Golf
• … Plus I manage four neighborhood-security cars

What led you to get the Club Wagon?

My parents bought the Club Wagon new in June 1993, intending for it to be my mother’s daily driver as well as a road trip vehicle. Most of my mother’s family lived 200 miles to the west. It’s the only car my mother ever bought new.

As the years wore on, my parents used it for the occasional camping trip, the rear bench’s ability to fold flat into a queen-sized bed being handy for that. They also had a lake house with about an acre of grass that they would mow themselves by driving their riding lawn mower up a pair of 2×10 and into the back of the van.

How did you end up with it?

By early 2018, after a quarter century of mostly my mother driving it daily to work 2 miles away, my mother needed to stop driving, and my family was growing, so I bought the Club Wagon from my parents. At roughly 165,000 miles, it was rough around the edges and needed lots of little things, but its bones were still good. I took a big step up in learning about maintaining an older vehicle with it. Now, with nearly 198K miles on it, we have four successful trips to Big Bend National Park in the logs, each a trip of nearly 2,000 miles.

This last time, it was just me and my two children, now elementary school-age, meeting other families there. One double-edged sword to camping with a vehicle that big is that it’s often easier to just chuck something into the van than to think about whether I really need it. So, although I’d brought a tent and a backup emergency tent, when we rolled into the campground, it was dark, windy, and freezing cold.

I didn’t feel like pitching a tent in those conditions, so instead, my children and I just slept in the Club Wagon. It worked so well that we went the rest of the trip sleeping every night in the van! One of my fondest memories is from watching my two children, both very playful and also very competitive with each other, get into a spontaneous chair-back tilting competition with each other using the second row captains’ chairs (it was a draw).

So, how often do you guys drive it?

Nowadays, I drive it mostly once a week, partly to keep it going, partly because it’s my kids’ favorite among our fleet. That may mean driving it three miles round trip to our Cub Scout meeting or fifty miles round trip to visit my mother in her memory care home. Twice a year, we’ll bring it to go camping with our Cub Scout pack. Occasionally, I’ll stack my two surfboards on the roof and drive down to the coast. It’s so big inside, and the factory tinting is dark enough that I can easily change inside!

So we’ve heard from the kids, but what’s your favorite thing about the Club Wagon?

There is much I love about my Club Wagon, from the ridiculous size of the thing to the fun V8 noises to playing anagrams with fridge magnet letters on the backdoor with my neighbor, Kevin (a retired middle school English teacher. He’s good!) and to the early 90s grid pattern on the instrument cluster and upholstery to serve as a design cue seeming to say “we’re digital now!” all because the odo/tripometer is indeed displayed digitally.

Also, while nothing is 100% reliable, at least with this, I can fix much of what goes wrong. And much of what does go wrong is little stuff that I can live with for a while, like, for example, the power locks don’t work right now. But even when something more serious does go wrong, it’s pretty fixable. There are lots of mechanics who can work on Ford trucks, right? There are lots of parts available. They’re pretty affordable. Which is a large part as to why this thing is still on the road after 33 years.

But I think my favorite thing about it is how much enjoyment it brings to the second generation of my family.

Anything you don’t like? Anything you wish you could change about it?

Oh, I have a list, mostly of things that are broken, such as the power locks. I have an electrical engineer buddy who has been helping me, try and diagnose and repair the original remote power lock system. The actual circuit boards are unobtainium now and we couldn’t figure out how to repair the old one, so we’re trying to fabricate a new one.

How’s that going?

We seemed so close. We had working power locks for, like, a week, and then, something went wrong with the board. We’re not sure what yet, but maybe one day soon. It’s been a fun hobby to, learn about and engage with my friend.

What does it need currently?

There’s been some nagging problems that, probably, I guess, have faded from actually any sort of need. I have a list that I keep. There’s a clunk from the front end when I reverse with the wheel hard side to side, but my mechanic and I have talked about it, and he looked at it, and everything seems okay, so I’m monitoring, and so there’s, like, lots of stuff like that. Things I should keep an eye on, just in case it changes.

And what are your plans for the Club Wagon?

I think we’ve hit upon our perfect usage of it as a family road trip vehicle.

Moving on to the Volvo, what’s the story there?

We had a lot of changes going on in 2017 and 18, so, my parents were getting older, they needed to stop driving, our family was growing. We ended up getting an au pair. At first we thought, that since I had the van, and my wife had her Civic that if the nanny needed to do something, she could use the Golf. Well, the Golf and the Civic are both manual transmissions. The au pair found the manual transmissions pretty distracting. I looked around for something with an automatic transmission, and what could be better for a novice driver carrying around my babies than a Volvo wagon?

What kind of condition was it in?

It was rough when we first got it, but once it all got sorted, it’s been a great car ever since. It had about 165k on it when we bought it, and it’s up to 210,000 now.

How does it get used?

We sometimes use it to take trips if it’s more like a weekend trip. In recent years, I’ve taken down to the coast to go surfing. If I leave in the morning, I can blast up the highway in comfort, still getting 30 miles per gallon, surf a couple sessions, and then come back for dinner.

And what’s the best thing about the Volvo?

My favorite thing has to be the comfort. The seats are great. I’m starting to understand that Volvo’s sort of famous for having fabulous seats, and I believe it now. Also, I’ve never had a vehicle with a sunroof before. Unfortunately, the fabric on the underside started coming off, so I just pulled it down. But it’s, it’s been nice to have.

On the downside, the sunroof seems to leak from the base of the A pillar on the passenger side. I think it’s not just a clog. I think it may actually have a break in the line.

Over the years, we collected some fun accessories, such as the roof rack. I even ended up acquiring a set of the factory way-back seats – which this car did not did not come with, but I found a set and installed them. Henry has outgrown it now, but the kids have loved that feature.

I think people nowadays are surprised to learn that this sort of thing ever existed. One time, our poor nanny told me that she had been frightened while she was out driving with Henry and Aubrey, because they were riding back there, and some other drivers seemed to get upset with her.

So what sort of work did this need when you got it?

It needed things like control arms, the air conditioning compressor clutch, a bit of minor engine work. The one relatively major thing was the body control module. That was not cheap. The symptom we were having was that the windshield wipers had a mind of their own. Apparently, thanks to early CANBUS and Volvo, you need a $2,000 electronics module to make your windshield wipers work okay.

One thing I got annoyed about was when it had a recall for the driver frontal airbag. They didn’t tell me they were going to swap the factory brown (Volvo calls is oak) airbag module to a black one. I mean, at least if they’d … had told me ahead of time, then maybe I could have searched around to find out if there’s some option to preserve the color or not, but I can live with it. Black goes with everything.

Any concerns with it at the high miles?

Not really. My understanding is their one weakness is the, the oil separator in the PCV system. It’ll get clogged just with normal usage over, like, maybe 30,000 miles or so and then when that happens, pressure will start to build in the top end of the engine, and it will start, pushing oil out of places like the camshaft seals. Which I do believe is what happened when this thing had a leak from the camshaft seals. But I think you have to really let that go a long time before it really causes serious problems, and the part’s, like, 100 bucks. It’s just kind of a pain, because you have to remove the intake manifold to replace it.

Does this one get driven very often?

Again, about once a week to give it some exercise. Typically if I have the kids with me, I’ll end up driving the Club Wagon. If it’s just me, I’ll usually end up driving the V70.

Now where does the Civic fit in?

Bone, stock, and again, except for the stereo head unit, and very basic. My girlfriend at the time, now my wife, had a series of Broken old Ford Tauruses and finally managed to convince her father to find something that might be less trouble. He bought her the Civic. It’s a 5-speed with a 1.7.

How is it?

It’s a fun car to drive; it’s got kind of go-kart handling, though sometimes I don’t feel quite so safe inside it with so many bro-dozers driving around. But the engine makes fun, growly sounds; the transmission’s nice in its feel. It’s so basic that it actually has manual crank windows. Of course, if you want to roll down a window that’s not right next to you, then it’s a bit less fun.

This is a base model Civic, I know a lot of those didn’t even have air conditioning. Does yours?

Fortunately, this has air conditioning, you need that in Texas. That’s the one option that she got, thankfully!

Is it holding up well over the years?

It’s in pretty good shape, it’s got, I wanna say 106,000 miles on it. It’s been a pretty trouble-free car.

When did you get the Golf?

Bought it new in March of 2004. I traded in my 1986 Mark II Golf for it. For years, I’d loved the look of the Volkswagens of that era, and I was ready for something a little more modern. So I pulled the trigger. I do sometimes miss the Mark II Golf. It was very light and nimble. I could bust a U-turn from my lane across one lane and be done in that third lane. And it’s a much bigger car, it’s like 800 pounds heavier than the Mark II was.

How is it?

It’s doing pretty well and has been mostly trouble-free, too. Except the interior’s getting pretty tired on the Golf. I think I hear that many German cars, starting at about that era, started using Earth-friendly plastics that biodegrade. So you get things like a glove box that no longer dampens its opening. Some of the exterior coating on the touch-and-feel plastics is wearing off. It’s currently just shy of 110,000 miles.

 Is this one totally stock too?

Mostly, but you may notice this is not the stock headliner. I mentioned the interior getting tired. That happened by 2017, it was down, and I decided to replace it, and a friend of mine had the great idea of doing a little square above the front seat so it looks like you have a sunroof. I thought, “Oh, that’s a cool idea! Wait a minute, why not just do the whole thing, so that it looks like I have a convertible. And so I have a convertible, but only on the inside. Kinda like a TARDIS.

It’s the world’s first combination, hatchback and convertible, giving you all the utility of a hatchback, and all the fun of open-air fun of a convertible. The world’s first golfriolet if you will.

How hard was it to install the headliner?

Not so bad, really. You have to undo some fasteners and take out some fixtures like the sun shades, some of the lights, and then you can remove the headliner, which fits to this whole card thing that you take out the back hatch. Then you’ve just got this kind of big board kind of thing. That made it really pretty easy.

Aside from the interior, it’s been pretty good though?

Yeah, the exterior of the car has held up very well, so have all the mechanicals. The most annoying issue I have now is the stupid plastics broke at the OBD port, so that can sometimes make things a little difficult.

I also got sick of the plastic hubcaps constantly falling off, and just painted the black steelies silver. I think it looks good, and now I’m not always looking for a replacement hubcap.

Now what’s the story with the neighborhood security cars?

That came about because the neighborhood I live in has an HOA. We roll our own security program, where we employ off-duty law enforcement officers, mostly from the Houston Police Department, to patrol the neighborhood. And they do so in cars that the neighborhood owns and provides for them.

They are the same make and model car that law enforcement agencies tend to use around here, and so that’s why, in the past, we’ve had the Ford Crown Vics, and now they’ll use Dodge Chargers. We paint them to look like police cars and put lights and sirens on them. And then, the police will drive around in those.

How did you end up in charge of them?

When the prior security chair needed to retire after doing that job for 16 years, the neighborhood was faced with trying to find a new chair, or moving to private security. The private security guys really did not impress me, so I signed up for the job of being security chair.

At the time, we had the two Crown Vics, but they were having trouble running enough to finish shifts. At this point, they each have somewhere around 185,000 or 190,000 miles on them. But, of course, the mileage belies the fact that they spend a lot of time either idling or cruising the neighborhood at, like, ten miles per hour. They were in rough shape, so we ended up getting the Chargers. The Chargers have their own issues, but different issues.

Did you get rid of the Crown Vics when you got the Chargers?

We still have the two Crown Vics as well. We use them both as decoys and as backup backups, because we have two Chargers, the idea being that one would be a backup, but in practice, what has happened is that at least once a year, both of the Chargers will be out of service at the same time.

In at least two of those instances, it’s been for complete cooling system failures. What happens in these Chargers is the cooling systems have electric cooling fans, and the bearings will go bad, and so then the fan will move forward into the radiator. Then you’ve got a bad fan assembly and a bad radiator. It’s about $2,000 worth of damage, at least with an affordable, independent shop.

That’s annoying. Which engine do they have?

They’re both 3.6. And those have been solid. It’s just been the peripheral things, like the cooling fan. We’ve also had issues with the plastic oil cooler. There’s this housing that sits on top of the intake manifold, in the V, where oil circulates and goes through the filter. That, and that’s where you change the filter. But it also circulates coolant through there to cool the oil, and those plastic oil coolers are not long-lived. And that’s been our experience as well.

How many times have you had to replace those?

I think we’re up to three now, between the two of them, and we’ve only had those cars for two years now.

I know Chargers or police cars spend more time idling than driving, but any idea how many miles are on the Chargers?

We bought both of them used at about 40,000 to 45,000 miles. Now they’re up to 60 to 65. With how many issues they’ve had, I sometimes wonder if the Crown Vics may still end up outliving the chargers. I pushed for hanging on to them against the opinions of some of the others on the neighborhood board.

I’m worried that something like the infotainment system in the Chargers will break, and that’s how you control the air conditioning, and that it will be prohibitively expensive to repair, whereas we don’t have that problem with the Crown Vics. So I think it’s gonna be one of those types of issues that ends up being the end of them. It’s so unfortunate that the car itself is fine, but then it’s just a couple of wires go bad, and it’s impossible to trace, and fix.

Thanks Frank!

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