How much is the volvo worth?

I've had a 1995 850 T5 estate for about 6 months, bought from ebay. It's on

German and Swedish are great for most parts at sensible prices

I can get low 30's MPG if driven carefully, but that rarely happens :-P

I drove one first 6 years ago and have wanted one ever since, and won't part with it now!

Alan.

They're f***ed.

Ben Blaney ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Well, yes, but how do you differentiate them from every other f***ed car out there...?

(Having said that, I followed a Ka yesterday - about 4/5 yrs old - still with a National car rental sticker in the back window...)

Haven't you ever wondered just who actually buys a car and keeps it for just six months yet does 10,000 miles? There are car supermarkets full to the brim with ex-hire cars, main agency stealerships tend to be full of "SOR" cars and yet they're all sold as being "ex lease, only one driver", yet there's never any sign at all of this mystical driver anywhere on any paperwork for the car. The service history books are always vague as hell with no accompanying receipts, the alloys are always kerbed, the door cards are normally far more scuffed than you'd expect from a 6 month old lease car, and the tyres normally show a lot of wear for just 10k miles.

Besides, where can you actually lease a car for six months from?

Does it matter? You're not going to buy any of them!

I have the same problem, my father bought one last year, I have been hooked ever since....

I have never, ever driven such a wolf in sheeps clothing, some people in the T5 club have uprated the turbo and fitted modified fuel systems and downpipes to increase power to around 400bhp - It's hard to tell exactly though as most rolling roads wont measure that much power!

I drove my fathers last winter and left a scooby doo for dust in sunny Blackpool, he looked kindo embarased and started looking to see if it was an unmarked car.

White one's are great, everybody thinks your a coppa - I have driven one and people where moving over to let me past, lol.

Andy

Taxes. Their (UK) major tax is the VAT, a sales tax. We were just touring Scotland and England in May and the prices were about the same as in the US except they were in £ not $, so, in effect, just about everything cost twice what it does in the USA. However, that is misleading because we have income tax, social security tax, and property taxes taken out of our spending money in the USA, may still pay sales tax in addition. Their (UK) VAT is included in the price.

As well as our income tax and national insurance that gets deducted from our wages...

We also pay income tax and national insurance (social security tax). Plug some numbers (in pounds, not dollars, obviously) into this to get an idea of how much....

Lol - odd how even the most underpowered daily rental shopping trolley can leave hoooge number elevens everywhere...

And VAT is 17.5% which is 2-3 times higher than your Sales Tax I believe. Plus, a recently introduced "reciprocal agreement" means that if we (in any EU country) buy off the 'net from US companies they have to charge us VAT at the rate applicable in our country. We have a name for this situation, Rip-off Britain :-(

BTW, can you explain something about US Sales Tax? I see on websites things like "California residents add x% Sales Tax" which, presumably, means that if you live in another state then you don't pay the Sales Tax. Does this mean that if you live near the border between two states that you can drive into the next state and do all your shopping tax-free?

Parish

I've never seen this (although it may well exist). When I first moved here in the mid-80s, my recollection is that some drive-through "restaurants" wouldn't charge sales tax, presumably for a similar reason.

Beverly

Here's an example plucked at random from a Google

:-)

Parish

Beverly

Parish ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

AIUI (and I am not a 'merkin) any sales "within-state" are taxable. Any sales between states are not.

Since any over-the-counter sale is within the state by definition (unless the state boundary happens to pass between salesman and customer...) they're all taxable, even if the customer lives out-of-state.

Er - who's 'they' in this case? We have to pay the vat (and duty if applicable) on imports, but it doesn't get charged by the US company like VAT normally is - it gets handled upon import. This isn't a recent thing at all, neither is it unique to imports from the US.

Are you talking about some special new rules - if so, can you tell me more? FWIW my last import from the US was about last month, and I know that nothing of what you said applied to it.

cheers, clive

Yes. At least people drive from Vancouver, WA to Portland, OR for that reason and people drive from southeaster PA to DE for that reason. However, things that are registered like cars and boats must have the state (and local) sales tax paid before they are registered. One caveat that is interesting is that if you live in Oregon, you can buy your car in Washington tax-free because Oregon doesn't tax cars. You hear "cross over the bridge" ads all the time on Portland radio stations.

Liquor has an even higher tax, so there are frequent trips across state lines for liquor. Now keep in mind that we (USA) have a lot of people driving gas hogs like SUV's doing this, so the savings are very marginal sometimes.

People in the USA think our petrol prices are high. We are paying about $2.25 per gallon (that is £0.30 per liter) for regular now. While in the UK I was paying about $7 per gallon (that is £0.95 per liter). ... and we think our gas prices are high.

Heh, we used to do "burn out" contests in 1.0 Micras when we were bored. Either that or have Seicento Vs Ka handbrake tournaments. Amazing how many times you can get a Ka to spin if you yank the handbrake on at 50mph in a carpark.