2 x c303 + volvo emblem 1974 - Wechsel zur deutschen Sprache

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| Arrival | Testdrive | Repairs | Ferry | Highway |

Travel to sweden to buy a Volvo C303

Erster Anblick

Arrival

After a lot of E-mails the day has come: Sweden is calling. Some hours in the bus from Cologne to Haan, some hours in the departure area, after that I could stand the flight with Ryanair easily. Used to travel worldwide in this less than two hours I just had finished the newspaper.

Karl fetched me from the Airport - after we did find out by mobile phone that he waited at the wrong ona. Ryanair is using allway the smaller airfields, and Gothenburg also has such a smal old military airport called Gothenburg-City.

Some dozens of kilometers we traveled through the wonderfull landscape in the east of Gothenburg until we stoped at Karls house, and there my Volvo C303 stood as on the picture above. Before sunset we just had time for a short general check. The rest of the evening we had a tastefull thai meal from a takeaway nearby, some music DVDs, lots of 4WD-pics on the computer and nearly half a stillage of "Svensk Starköl Premium Pilsner".

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Im Volvo C303 im dichten Grün

Testdrive

After the breakfast the game became serious. At first Karl showed all driving controlls to me. Than he drove some kilometers down the road until we reached a forest track. Here was an open area with some trenches, hills and some heaps of construction waste. Carefull he showed me what the Volvo C303 could do, but without pushing too hard - the car still belonged to him...

After that in the rain we drove uphill a small forest track, which became bumpy and muddy more and more. In this wet weather it was too risky. May be it would have been possible, but may be we could get bogged or slip sideways into the trees. On the pictures you cannot recognize how steep it was.

Than I had to start: drive some turns, go over some heaps of mud, through the trenches, up the slope and down again, everything no problem. Always take care with the steering wheel in terrain, the fingers should stay out of the wheel. Whithout power steering the steering wheel will turn back very fast, if a front wheel hits something. You can leave it freely or you have to hold it with a lot of power.

After that Karl drove to a small depot for construction material, where he showed me in a soft hill of earth who the limited slip differential works. On a soft ground the climbing ability is much better with that, but the road should be realy soft or slippery. Elsewhere you should avoid to use this function, because with the time the fixed wheels would ruin the power transmission in the axles.

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Waldweg im Regen - lieber umkehren

Repair

After a way on the highway we drove to the petrol station. Reputedly my Volvo C303 consumes just simple premium with 95 octane. But I now the lower level of the fuelmeter now: showing "spare" there are neraly 10 liters left. I bougt an "S"-sign for near the license plate and we drove to Karls friend Anders. By the way, there live a lot of friends of Karl in this area, and he said they all have fun doing some work on old cars...

Anders has been a trucker on long tours to Germany, too. After a cup of coffee he tried to sound me out. On the way to the wrecking yard, where the spare parts were, he asked to go a shortcut throuh the forest. Then he guided me some hundred meters through "funny" terrain. Between little narrow standing birches, through heather, around rocks and through a swampy dip it was three times as long as the direct way, but I did well.

Than we stood in front of two half wrecked TGB 20, sixwheeler trucks with canvas. There we sorted out some spare parts I eventually would need or what had to be exchanged now or soon. Incidental the defectiv contact for switching the brake lights was changed. After that work we said goodbye to Anders and drove back to Karls house.

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Vor der Fähre nach Kiel

Ferry

p Now a course in maintenance started. We both laid down on the ground under the car and Karl showed me all the nipples where to lubricate and where to fill in oil. Fortunately it had stopped raining. Than with a hammer the position of the left backlight was corrected.

Now I had to pack and complete the formal work. The contract of the deal was signed, documents and money was exchanged, a last beer found its way to my trolley as a souvenir. Some farewell fotos for documentation later I was alone on my way to the ferry in Gothenburg. The pier, which I had seen from the airplane, is not to be missed. Just follow the signposts to "Kiel" and you will reach automaticly the queue of cars shown above.

I had made a booking for the ferry over the internet and a printout from the transaction in my pocket. At 5 pm the counters opened, driving through I got in exchange my ticket and a cardboard with barcode as a key for my 4-bed-room. Than I had to drive up the wide ramp for smaller cars and my Volvo C303 took place in a line on the upper car deck. Dozens of trucks and cars with trailers drove in by the big doors in the stern, looking tiny from the upper sun deck. The ferry is very very big, and everywhere in the wider stairways gambling machines are installed, which are used frequently.

Shortly before departing it was getting dark, therefore on the jurney wasn't much to see. In the duty free shop I bought something to eat and had some time with the tv in the launge. With two other men I shared the cabin. The waves came across our direction for the first half of the night, hard strokes hit the ship, everything was rattling. Long time after midnight it became calmer leewards of the danisch islands. When I got to the deck in the morning we just had won the race with the ferry from Oslo.

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Auf der Fähre

Highway

By the plan shortly after 9 o clock I could leave the ferry and enter the arterial road leading to the highway. Just following the signposts to "Hamburg" I had left Kiel in a short time. On the highway I could follow the other trucks easily going ca. 85 km/h.

On half the way to Hamburg I was invited to my first traffic control. A civil police car lead me out to a parking area and the two officers where very interested what a car that was, from where, how expensive and so on. The swedish documents by EU-standard I could explain to them - from the 1st of october we will have the same in Germany.

Near Bremen I had a rest, a meal and did fill up the petrol, the fuel gauge did show just 1/2, but 50 liter I had to fill in. That made up 18,5 liter/100 km. Stupidly I forgot to check the air pressure. 120 km further I remembered that and I had only 1.1 - 1.25 Bar in the front, that is much less than the 1.7 Bar written on the side of the car.

With corrected air pressure I drove on, in the hills I could pass some slow trucks easily. From 85 up to 95 km/h the car pulls out with no problems, it seemed even more stable than. At all my balance of passing with slower and faster trucks is straight at 5:5 on the route from Kiel to Cologne.

Around 4:40 pm I was in Colgone, more than one hour faster than expected. Again I filled up the fuel, again it was about 50 liter. That reduced the consumption to 16,5 liter/100 km on the second stint. Driving whole the distance with correct air pressure may have resulted in a fuel consumption shortly above 15 liter, for a car of this size a relativly good outcome. Below you can see a picture from the first rest on a german highway parking area.

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Unsrer Volvo C303 auf dem ersten deutschen Parkplatz

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