h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My Mom has had a volvo for about 7 years now and the thing still runs as well as the day we bought it. The only thing we've ever done is give it its standard tuneups and give it new tires about a year ago. The only problem with it is that it requires premium gas instead of standard.

I had a Volvo which at 12 years and 125,000 miles was still on its original clutch. They are very well built. My current 940 estate has 126,000 on the clock after 8 years and I think it might now need a new battery, but apart from that everything works exactly as it came out of the factory.

The inside is dull. It was dull when it was new, and it's dull now, and it'll probably still be dull in 20 years when petrol is available only from antique dealers. Dull, but intact.

Has anyone else indulged in the subtle art of Volvo bashing? One of my close friends is in the possession of four Volvos at the moment due to their reluctance to die. Despite the fact that they are all already second, third or even fourth-hand, their colour is a uniform rust colour, one of them has an engine which keeps falling out, and another whose doors tend to fall off, her thriftiness demands that she cannot get rid of a car which still goes, and despite of all their faults, they still (well most of the time) go! As a result, my friend has hit upon the idea of abusing her cars until they decide to give up the ghost. This invoves driving at 70mph down country roads (preferably in as low a gear as poosible), crashing through the gears at every oppportunity, and the general bad treatment of her cars. This strategy has not yet met with success and I wonder if anyone else has managed to put a Volvo out of action (short of driving it into a wall) so my friend can finally get a new car?

My 940 is dreadfully unreliable. I had to replace the catalytic converter after only 119,000 miles, and the fan belt only lasted 124,000. Oh, and the lamp which lights up the seatbelt warning light in the back of the car stopped working last week - disgraceful when the car is only nine years old.

When Volvo started to race in touring cars they mis-heard and thought it was Towing cars so entered an estate. Being so full at the back they intimidated the rest of the field making them very successful

Very droll

Whether driving down country lanes at (at least) 70mph is symptomatic of a desire to decrement the totality of Volvo existance is moot. However, said passtime is extremely GOOD FUN especially when meeting some ordinary speedwagon (GTI, M3) lumbering along at a hair-raising 50mph.
How their knuckles whiten as you feed them your dust! How they laugh when you have to find a tractor to pull you out of the field, back through the hedge, over the ditch and back onto the slightly damp road. Oh that back-end-out road handling! Oh what fun!
Mind you, when the head gasket in my all-aluminium 2.3 litre fuel-injected 245GLT blew for the umpteenth time it was the end of the road for the fear machine, and I had to calm myself down with a 740. Which is rather less powerful, slightly more comfortable, and is seemingly so invisible it can be left unlocked in the middle of Liverpool for days at a time, or driven at speed past policeman with a fixed penalty defecit without a blink of their eyelids.
Also has a big boot for spilling washing liquid in, but thats another story.

Actually the speed wagon is more likely to be pursued by the Volvo these days, in a fetching Battenburg design of fluorescent green and orange squares, and decorated with blue flashing lights. The T5-R will top 170mph, and is a favourite of Plod the nation over. Meanwhile, I have never lost the back end of my venerable 940 2.3 16-v, probably because I replace the shocks when they become soggy rather than when they fail an MOT (which on a Volvo seems to require that they have disintegrated completely). My V70 2.5 20-v did handle better, though, and of course the new ones are 70% stiffer, making them one of the best-handling front-drive cars on the road. And being front-drive, of course, less likely to have that encounter with the ditch. Oh, and one more thing - I knew a man who went off the road at 45mph in a 760 (he fell asleep at the wheel in the small hours of the morning). The car was pushed back onto its wheels and driven onto the transporter. Needless to say he went straight out and bought another 760....

My father had an Volvo V70 for two years in wich he drove 225260 miles. He have never had a more useless car. Everything on the car broke including left front light 5 times! His earlier Audi 100 managed to go 434430 miles in three years with just one thing broken - the left ligt - once! They who have no problems with their Volvo can own any car without any problem. It not the quality that helps them, it is their care of the car.

I have a Senator, arguably the best car Vauxhall/Opel have ever marketed in Europe, and it is always developing little niggling faults like engine surges on idle, lights in the instrument panel which stop working, poor radio reception and so on.

Only one manufacturer beats Volvo in terms of the proportion of all cars ever made which are still running, and yes I would be happy to own one of their cars, but the running cost of a Rolls-Royce has always been slightly higher than that of a Volvo.