I`ve had 2 from new. The first, an AX, was never right from purchase and was back to the dealer more times than I care to remember. They had three attempts at fixing a (IMO) dangerous braking problem (it would pull hard left no matter how hard you hit the brakes), the dealer otherwise damaged paintwork, and tried to make excuses for faults.
The "best" excuse was saying the car had been shot at because the rear screen had shattered, forcing the lower plastic panel out of place and to become damaged. When I told them I wanted the police involved, given their explanation, they uhhhhhmmm and ahhhhd and said they`d sort it under warranty. This was done by trying to get away with a paint pen (!) to go over the damage. As if that wasn`t bad enough, it was a DIFFERENT COLOUR. I got rid of it after 6 months, making a not inconsiderable loss just to be shut of the feckin` thing.
My second car, a ZX, was only bought as I would have lost even more money on the AX if they hadn`t done it as a part-ex.
The only faults I can remember on that were the drivers' seat ratchet dropping a couple of notches, the side window seals being useless, and one I never resolved - the driveshafts (?) on both sides were clunking quite heavily when cornering - the car was only three years old.
Thankfully the noise wasn`t picked up when another dealer took it in part-ex on my Hyundai Accent (now 6 yrs old) - the only thing to go wrong on it so far was the drivers' side window winder, which was a known problem.
Volvo 850 or S40? Not the most fashionable of cars (hence relatively cheap) but usually well built to the point of being over engineered, plenty of toys on most models, comfortable, fairly indestructible and the towbar is almost compulsory.
Oooh, nice one. I'd forgotten the 850 as they still mentally occupy the £4000 space in my head, a 'classy big estate car' - despite having seen an M-plater advertised locally a couple of months ago for £650.
Being lazy I pulled the data from the haynes manual originally however I've just checked the rave cd (rover dealer manual) and it makes no mention of the restriction either - I'm a bit non plussed at it myself but maybe I missed something. Either way, your load is within the lower limit and the turbo is a lot of fun for a little money.
Anyway, every single 800 on the road is rust so why would you want one anyway ;-) ;-)
Duncan Wood ( snipped-for-privacy@dmx512.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
I've had seven hydraulic Cits over the years - 70kon a CX in three years, now five years in an XM. I've *once* had an LHM leak - a low- pressure return on a CX,easily fixed. Oh, and a burst high-pressure pipe on RichardK's XM, but I don't think we can blame the car, as it had been stood unused for *ages*.
On the other side, there's no problems with water in the hydraulic fluid leading to wheel cylinders needing to be replaced regularly.
Nah, there are quite a few knocking about under 1500 quid. Don't worry about the mileage being high, as long as it's in decent nick - my S40 has over
120,000 on the clock and isn't showing any signs of being leggy at all - just use the mileage myth to knock the price down ("oh, it's high mileage mate, must be rubbish then" or words to that effect).
I always thought that, because of stability problems, the fully-loaded caravan shouldn't weigh more than 85% of the kerb-side weight of the car. The engine size only affects performance not safety. You need a car which weighs 1100kg.
There's a 1997 S40 for sale near me with leather and all the toys. The asking price in the window (private sale, parked on a main road) is £2750, which I thought was very high. Is it?
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Yeah, does sound on the high side of expensive - they're generally dirt cheap at the moment for what is generally a well built car with very few problems. Parkers and the like vaguely hint at some build quality "issues" on pre-1998 models, so a '97 should be cheaper still. It's either a very low mileage T5 with FSH or blind optimism on the part of the seller.
Just had a look at it again. It's a 2.0 auto, 5 door, in green, with
113k on the clock. I hadn't realised it was an auto, so am definitely not interested. It seems to be in reasonable condition but is probably at least £1000 overpriced IMO (it's up for £2750.)
Sounds like a fair assessment (the cheapest ones are currently advertised at around the £1,000 mark!). Never driven an auto version but opinion and the official figures suggest that there's not much between it and the manual.
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