Are Volvo cars any good?

**squala** · February 21st, 2006 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by Walter

Squala,

How is the maintenance cost of your Volvo V40 so far? Do you buy parts from dealer or outside? Are parts readily available? May we know the reason for selling your V40? Thank you very much.

Walter, sent you a message on this.

I never knew the first S40 was based on the Carisma. Does that mean we can source out parts from Mitsubishi?

**fireblade** · February 21st, 2006 08:48 PM

Had the privilege of owning a brand new Volvo S40 couple of months back. It was more of an experience of owning that I finally decided to purchase one. It was a demo unit with 2t on the meter and was never registered. Got a real bargain from Viking Cars and it was just simply irresistible. Now comes the problem, it is very hard to maintain. It stayed with me for only six months and it was a good thing I never lost a centavo from using it. What were my experiences:

Downside :

1. Bird droppings easily damaged the paint job. Brought the car straight to Ziebart to remove the bird dropping to no avail, nasunog yung top coat.

2. Clearance is too low, easily scrapes the pavement for even not so low path

3. Gas gauge malfunctions at times and need to be brought to Viking for reset.

4. Got to talk to Volvo owners about the high maintenance costs as in HIGH.

5. Very low resale value for those who sell it a year later. Sold mine the same year and purchased at a bargain.

6. Everytime it rains, it is easily subject to acid stain, napoagod na ako kakadetail.

7. Their service is not that reliable.

Upside:

1. I can go inside Forbes and San Lo without a sticker.

2. No parking sign removed by security at the Fort whenever I arrive.

3. Building security in our office thinks I am the president of the company.

4. I feel safe.

5. I was doing 10-12km/liter for a 2.0/ not bad.

6. Full attention whenever I load gas.

7. Prestige.

Your call really if you want to own one or not. As they say, Volvo is for Life because you would not want to sell it because of the resale.

**OTEP** · February 21st, 2006 11:13 PM

Originally Posted by Walter

(Otep) Do Volvo parts cost so much or just a little bit more expensive than MB or BMW prices?

Genuine sa genuine halos pareho lang. Pero mas madali maghanap ng repair kits/surplus/replacement parts para sa Mercedes.

The car itself naman is just typically European. Not really that complicated to work on.

**AG4** · February 22nd, 2006 12:38 AM

Originally Posted by squala

I never knew the first S40 was based on the Carisma. Does that mean we can source out parts from Mitsubishi?

Only the basic platform was shared, a certain percentage of the parts are unique to each car(4,000 out of 5,000 parts), sort of like the new S40, Mazda 3 and Ford Focus.
I guess this is also one of the reasons why the S40 had better NCAP crash raitings compared to the Carisma.

**Walter** · February 22nd, 2006 09:18 AM

Originally Posted by MadMax

He brought his S80 with about 50,000 km to the dealer for some minor repair, got billed P180k to have the transmission redone!!! For a while, Volve was claiming that it was normal for a transmission to be replaced after 50,000 km!!!

This was a few months ago, I'll try to find out what happened and will update.

180K? That's too much! Didn't the dealer ask first before proceeding with the repair?

**Walter** · February 22nd, 2006 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by fireblade

Your call really if you want to own one or not. As they say, Volvo is for Life because you would not want to sell it because of the resale.

:bwahaha:

Guess I'll stick with getting a W124 then.

**Walter** · February 22nd, 2006 09:32 AM

Squala,

Thank you for the information regarding the maintenance headaches of the 850. No wonder they are very cheap.

I mentioned project car because of the unknown in maintenance problems, not really in terms of modifying it.

Actually, budget for a car is still for next year. Just thought we (me and my friend) would get an 850 this year since they are quite cheap and try to see if it's as easy and cheap as maintaining a Benz (he's a very good DIYer). If it doesn't work out, then we'll just resell it.

Anyone out there with any good thing to say about an 850?

**MadMax** · February 22nd, 2006 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by Walter

180K? That's too much! Didn't the dealer ask first before proceeding with the repair?

Sorry, to clarify what I stated earlier, Volvo was quoting (not billing) the P180k as the cost of replacing the transmission.

Got an update from my friend. From P180k, the quote went up to P250k, and Volvo was still claiming that the whole transmission had to be replaced.

After much haggling and negotiation, Volvo agreed to do the job for under P100k. So, with no other choice, my friend's 4-year old S80, which had run about 50,000km, had its transmission replaced late last year, at a cost of about P100k.

He tried selling the car, but did not because it had a very low resale value.

**Walter** · February 22nd, 2006 09:57 AM

Madmax,

Maybe it would've been cheaper if he had it done at HABREC / Grupo Talyer? Although, it's not certain if they also repair high end Volvos. I guess it's also hard to sell the S80 since it's a top of the line model just like the S-Class Benz or 7 series. Most who can afford these models have the capability to buy new ones already.

**OTEP** · February 22nd, 2006 11:18 PM

Kamusta ang repair facilities ng HABREC? May diagnostic computer ba sila?

Btw, I was at Paintronixx this morning having some paint redone on the W123, may isang 850 sedan doon being worked on. Pinalitan daw lahat ng valves. Not sure what the problem was. But it was the only Volvo in the Benz specialist's shop.

Yung 850 Estate namin wala pa naman problem. The odometer is busted but the engine computer still knows when to light the Service indicator. The unit is basically stock except for the Autopage anti-theft system.