480 - to buy or not to buy??

In news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de, Jerry Atrik decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Don't go there. The Volvo 480 is the car that very nearly annihilated Volvos reputation for reliability. They really are crap.

If you scrap it next June, for that price who cares as long as it is fully roadworthy now, especially if there's plenty of meat on the tyres, shocks and steering etc are OK and the engine oil/inside of filler cap etc is clean (and of course the coolant). You are not risking much here. You can always wizz it in for an early MOT and/or a mechanical check if you are not confident. For that price, again, what do you need the com[uter display for, as long as none of the legal bits are affected of course.

see

No. Faults with the speedo / instruments / computer display are nearly always 99.5% of the time the dash unit itself.

Tim..

Been to see it. It was a mini project car. Rear lights sorted. Problems = Speedo was working, but not rev counter. display on rhs of speedo was unlit - he says it needs a new bulb fitting but no readout of fuel etc could be seen mini rust of the rear wheel arches as per normal on 440 Volvos it seems electrics like lights, indicators, windows, sunroof all work engine seems fine, oil dirty: last changed 6 months ago, engine bay oily on left side, no apparent leak source visible drives o.k. brakes a little soggy but fine. gears o.k. clutch o.k. Not sure when cambelt last changes either altho it is in the pile of paperwork somewhere, so need to check that. Neighbour says don't touch it with a barge pole as it's a £200 car that's not really worth that with the rev counter/speedo problem.

So I'll probably leave it unless it really is a bargain as I don't NEED it but it does seem a nice car......

Get the owner to see it through the MOT - the only big prob. I remember is the cost of sorting out the rear wash/wipe - I don't believe it - but it can cost up to £500

The computer problem is normally caused by dry-joints on the rear of the speedo cluster. It's fairly straightforward to get to, and shouldn't take more than half an hour to get the whole cluster out the car. I believe there's a guide on the 480 Club Europe's website,

Once the speedo's out, the solder joints on the back of the connectors are the most likely culpriots.

I second this. Get a 12 year old(1993) Volvo 240 instead.

That's easier said than done. In my experience, 240s are very hard to find in the UK. 400 series Volvos are easier to find. And don't forget

- the 240 would be subject to the same MOT inspection that the 400 series Volvo would have to pass.

As an example, looking at motors.ebay.co.uk, there are a whole bunch of

400 series cars for sale, and only three 240s -- and one of those three had an expired MOT.

Rear wash-wipe isn't part of the MOT IIRC.

Correct.

The MoT Tester's Manual only refers to wipers and washers in relation to the windscreen.

My 480 passed it's MOT without the rear wash-wipe working, last time.

Ben.

This is another common problem with 480's. There is a halogen bulb which is used to display the LED on the infocenter. If you look really close, you can see that the infocenter is (probably!) working, it's just not illuminated. These cost about £10 from Volvo to replace (although I'm sure if you know what the bulb is, you could buy it a lot cheaper elsewhere), and you could do it at the same time you've got the binnacle out, looking for dry joints to fix the rev-counter problem - see my other post about that!

Ben.

wot now? 440 has passed mot muster with info notes about brake pipes corroding, sleeves on base of rear shocks corroded (but they said that last year!), rubber bumper thingies on base of rear shocks falling apart and a patched up exhaust. Logic tells me to stick with the old 440 and keep her going... might phone the ins company to find out what the 480 would cost as an extra car though ;-)