Faults:

1.5 years and more than 20.000 km - no problem!

After that had to change exhaust muffler - it looked like it never been changed on 12-years car and still had no touch of rust. Incredible!

At 174.000 the odometer had broken. that's all for more than two years of use!

General Comments:

It looks not expensive and rather outdated, but this has it's silver lining - I never worry about thieves.

Of course it's not that fast as the cars with 2.0l engines, but I can live with that.

The only two things about the interior that I don't like is that 1.) there's too little space for three adult passengers in the rear seat because of rear gear-box (at the same time sitting in front is quite comfortable), and 2.) too few places to put small stuff.

As for the bodywork and the engine, you'll never say that they're more than 5-6 years old: no touch of rust on the first and perfect compression (12.5) in the second, never had to add any oil till the next change.

One of the best cheap used cars on market, if you do not expect high performance from your car. Incredibly reliable and friendly to a driver.

Faults:

Almost everything.

Alternator changed with no results.

Heater didn't heat. (it had an unfixable cable broken)

Rear brakes would stick sometimes and made the car run slow.

Several electric idiosyncrasies.

Throttle cable broken several times.

Something in the air filter box went loose and went through the carburetor (twice!) resulting in an annoying ticking in the engine renaming my car to tricot mobile.

General Comments:

The things gone wrong in the car were my fault as I didn't respected the maintenance it required.

Still I loved the thing. strong as an ox, twice as ugly, yet amazingly stable (with 185/65/14) and fun rear wheel drift.

I still miss it.

Faults:

Back rest of the seat fell off (2 door - moving the seat takes a lot of torment).

Short circuit somewhere kept blowing fuses - radio, indicators, brake lights.

Throttle cable jammed (scary!)

Clutch is slipping.

General Comments:

Well as cars go this is a good one... provided you don't mind a lack of anything resembling design flair and style.

The 1.7 engine does the heavy body justice and can scare the pants off your average would-be Gary boy, though drinks petrol like a fish drinks water.

Tested a top speed of 105 mph (only to be expected when you have the aerodynamic properties of a house brick). 0-60 in around 10 seconds.

With brakes that'll have you stopped dead before you're dead and stopped, you can get away with flinging this luxury lorry around at knuckle biting speeds; but be wary because when they lock, they lock good and proper and before you know it you have square wheels.

One major flaw of the 340 Volvo is its inability to handle. You feel very detached from the ride at both low and high speeds, It's very unsettling and very unpredictable simply because you have very little feedback through the steering wheel - and therefore have no idea what it is that your tyres are actually doing on the road. For instance, this is the only car I've managed to accidentally pull a 630 degree spin in (and no that isn't a typo..) - I just had no idea that I had so little grip. It felt fine until the back end whipped round and we went into spin dry mode.

Being such a heavy car, you can be rest assured that once the back end goes, you may as well sit back and enjoy the ride since no amount of opposite lock will bring her back into line.

However my Volvo is still the most comfortable car that I have driven and still drive, with plenty of room and a living room couch approach in terms of seating.

Definitely not designed to be a driver's car - but rather a car 'which will get you from A-B'...

A good all rounder.