Independent Auto Volvo Service. Augusta, Maine.

 

I was heading to Brooklin ME from Cambridge MA on a cold clear December Sunday. My Volvo 850 has over 200k miles and has always been the most dependable of cars. I've owned it since it was new. I was on Route 3 heading east from Augusta to Belfast when the throttle seemed to lurch itself into wide-open. The gas pedal had no feel; it was just hanging there, with the engine howling maniacally and the car accelerating in an unhinged burst of speed. I threw it into neutral and the RPMs zoomed, the engine screaming even louder. The brake pedal felt weirdly stiff–probably from vacuum pressure. Steering to the shoulder, I was able to brake and shut it down. Yikes.

I spent 10 minutes on my back trying to figure out the problem by feel but that was impossible and traffic on Route 3 was zipping by uncomfortably close to my outstretched legs. What do you do on a Sunday afternoon in December on the roadside in Vassalboro, Maine with a car problem that you can't solve,  without hope of a garage being open and most of the country hunkered down in front of their massive TVs, watching moments of football genius wedged between a serial barrage of dreadful commercials?

You call AAA, that's what you do. The Towtruck operator arrived forty five minutes later but I had no idea where to ask him to take the car. 

"There's a place in Augusta," he said, "with maybe a couple hundred Volvos parked outside."

Okay. That sounds like a plan. It was 12 miles away and AAA covers you for only five but there weren't many options.

He hooked up the car and we pulled it down a network of backroads until I saw the big old brick building looming ahead on Riverside Drive. The scruffy outskirts of Augusta, not far from the Kennebec River. There really were what looked to be a couple of hundred Volvos strewn over couple of weedy acres. A high proportions of boxy 140s and 240s, a few 122s, and several newer cars. There was no sign saying anything about services offered but according the Internet, this was Independent Auto, and Volvos had been repaired here, and not just archived, or interred. So I scrawled a note outlining my problem and asking whoever read it to please take a look at my car. Then I prowled the field for a couple hours until my friend arrived to give me a lift up to Brooklin, 100 miles northeast. 

I had no idea what to expect from the Volvo shop if it was, in fact, a Volvo shop and not someone's weird Swedish obsession written on a landscape.

Next morning I spoke to the owner, Tom Broome. By then he had already diagnosed the problem (stuck throttle linkage) and resolved the issue (by lubricating the linkage and cable). And I realized how lucky I had been to break down within 10 miles of an amazing, original, independent Volvo shop run by a young man who may not speak Swedish but certainly seems to know his way around a Volvo. I picked up the car that afternoon. I plan to get more work done there once I figure out the geography and logistics of dropping off the 850; if Tom has some time. Amazing place. Looks like there must be lots of parts on hand. Check it out. Independent Auto 683 Riverside Dr, Augusta, ME 04330

Phone: +1 207 622 4563