Breaking up is hard to do…unless you have recently been left stranded, broke, betrayed…sounds like a bad country song, but in truth it was the relationship between my Volvo XC90 and me. It has been a good friend for 6 years – comfortable and strong, sexy and nimble…but it had its quirks, and its weaknesses.

I knew the days were numbered at one point in about 2005, after I had bent the rear tie rods on a low-impact dirt road in Utah, after the dealer told me ‘its intended to be an ON-ROAD SUV…’ I had hoped that the Swedes would have built a solid luxury SUV that could take at least some level of abuse, as the glossy mags had advertised – in fact, in the SUV of the Year award issue of Automobile Magazine – it beat out the Hummer in the 4×4 test! On Road SUV…huh!!

After the Albuquerque Incident this year, and the hassles and expense of that (almost $5,000 out of pocket), I felt the time was short…but having paid it off and put that new money into it, I was determined to get through 2009 with it, and re-evaluate in 2010, when times were more certain. But then it needed an oil change – not so bad, right?? Except that when I picked up the car at the service place, it would not start…well, it would start, but then it would die 3 seconds later…repeatedly.

The air sensor had gone out…even though they had driven the car an hour earlier after its oil change and it was fine. That was it…If I had been in Fruita or Ouray or Moab, the car would have been a paperweight waiting for a multi-hundred dollar tow truck trip…

That’s it…relationship over.

So I call up my friend Joel Bush at H.M. Brown, and three days later I have the truck I have been swooning over for the past 3 years…Introducing my new Tacoma…Bold upon Bold…

Farewell, Volvo…

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