Possumblog

Well, first of all, I am now in a VERY exclusive club.

That's because my good friends Olaf and Sven sent me my brand new Volvo High-Mileage Club 200,000 mile badge! Done up in rich gold-tones and blue enamel, it came packaged in a spiffy custom-made cardboard mailer full of photographs of trendy sparkling people laughing and having a high old time. I think that's probably because the don't have a stray short circuit in their dashboard.

Or maybe they do.

Anyway, I had been under the impression that they only made 100,000 mile badges and I would simply receive two of those, but one that says 200 is fine. The drawback to the whole enterprise?

Sticky tape.

You'd think with all the years of Swedish engineering expertise (and now with Ford's billions of dollars) that they could come up with a better way of sticking the thing to the car than with a hunk of double-stick foam tape. There's quite a bit of DIY solutions on the various Volvo discussion boards (Home of Countless Moron Projects!) for how to come up with something more sturdy. Some folks who want to mount them on the grille have taken to epoxying a couple of flat washers and machine screws on the back of the badge that are long enough to extend through the grille bars. That's kinda my solution, but hopefully mine is a bit more easier--I just picked up a pack of 2 inch brass mending plates like you use on furniture. The holes are countersunk for flathead screws, but instead of wood screws, I picked up a couple of long flathead machine screws and nuts, and stuck the screws through the plate and stuck all of that onto the back. Works just fine. I suppose--I still have to actually put it on the car--so far all I've done with it is wave it through the air and make pbptpbptpbptpbpt sounds like I'm driving.