Faults:

I'd wish the dashboard (almost the same of 480?) was a bit resistant. That's a shame, because when I go in badly roads the plastic makes a lot of really annoyng noises.

Sometimes the engine sounds really rough, almost like its running on 3 cylinders.

Very recently, the seats have started to wear badly which I think is normal because the car was stopped in the street for 1 and a half year.

The air conditioning had to be fixed. The engine could not support it.

The info centre is not totally reliable.

Fuel pump fixed. Wasn't working when my future mother in law gave me the vehicle.

General Comments:

I think it's a fairly nice car with full extras and a real powerful and reliable Renault engine.

Electrics are the main problem on this vehicle.

Seats and driving position are really comfortable.

The turbo is at ancient way: not progressive. It's all or nothing.

Nice and big cabin, but some plastics are worst than the ones that equipped my 'Uno' (!) - especially the dashboard.

Nice car to medium / long trips if you don't press the throttle to hard. Not so good in the city.

Henrique Gomes

Faults:

The carburetor had to be changed at 190000 km, but mainly because it was cheaper to replace than to repair the old (got the piece from a 2º hand store).

The distributor failed and I runned 2 months with only 3 cylinders, before y took the car to the mechanic. Curiously, above 2000 rpm, the engine showed no failure, but at slow motion was terrible.

The last year the front seats have started to degrade very quickly.

General Comments:

Not very fast (mine vibrates above 140 km/h), but can maintain a cruiser speed for hours without problem. Also good climber, can raise any mountain road found in Spain without any problems, even with a caravan attached.

Its wonderful to park this car, because of his reduced turning radius.

I like the controls, slightly turned to the driver seat. It makes easy to reach the controls, without having to separate much the hand of the steering wheel.

Faults:

Has needed two alternators.

One of the heated seats no longer works.

General Comments:

This car is deceptively quick and has surprised quite a few boy racers!

Very comfortable and well equipped.

Extremely reliable and sturdy car.

My first car since I passed my test and it has been a brilliant first car for me to have.

Shame about the boring image and appearance that they have.

Faults:

Very little - we had to replace the radiator when I couldn't fix a leak, but otherwise the car has been superb.

General Comments:

The car is perfect for a family of four. There is plenty of room both in the back and front, and the boot is spacious.

On the GLE model, we had plenty of "toys" to keep people happy - electric front windows, sunroof and mirrors, for example. The heated seats were a treat.

Faults:

There is this saying 'Sooner or later, every car becomes an Opel'. This had happened to this particular Volvo, but I didn't understand it until it was too late.

Both springs of front suspension needed changing immediately after buying (total cost: EUR 92).

Idle control motor failed. Most of the time it worked OK, but sometimes the revs stayed at 1800-2000 and refused to go lower for 10 seconds or so. Finally, one day when I started the car, the engine just decided to work at 4500 rpm and wouldn't go any lower. After standing a couple of hours, the problem had disappeared, but I decided to get it fixed. Unfortunately, the replacement part wasn't available and the mechanic had to fix the old idle control motor, which cost me 64 EUR.

Some ball bearings inside the generator started to make a lot of noise and I had them replaced (cost: 23 EUR).

Mysterious high power consumption when standing - ca 250-270 mA. I suspect it was the fault of broken 3rd party alarm, but never really checked it. It ate my new battery in 2 months!

Mileage counter didn't work already when I bought it (stuck at 229,999 km). Also, the speedometer took some time to "wake up" in the morning - it started showing the speed only after driving a kilometer or so).

Sometimes had trouble shifting into first gear. Had to to some frantic fiddling in front of streetlights :-)

The car had some body rust, but nothing too bad considering the climate here in Estonia.

Finally, when I had had the car for 3 months, the engine developed a massive oil leak. At that point, I just got fed up and decided to sell it cheaply.

General Comments:

Despite of all the problems, the car was quite good when it worked. Very comfortable to drive.

And it never left me on the road.

The "don't know" answer to the question whether or not I would buy another Volvo means that I probably would, but not that old.