Volvo ownership and maintenance

1) I have been privy to the financial side of running a dealership. A Toyota dealer, it was apparent the Service revenue paid for all associated employees and most administrative staff required for the sales office and had they not sold any cars and only serviced them they boasted that if they could do with out all salaried sales staff profits would make it a much more succesful business and excellent comfortable living for the dealer principal, naturally Toyota Canada will not allow you to open up shop with out selling new cars. I find it hard to believe that this supposed dealer gives all its customers the honest and level headed quotations on line as you say with perks and so on, but if so your lucky, perhaps they are getting more than what you either don't know or forgot to tell here in this news group. One example of that is there are many parts costs that have increased since Ford took the helm or majority shareholder status where they must have made the decision to stop giving long time Volvo owners with excessive or accumulated miles on the OD readout any perks and/or parts discounts (at least in Ontario Canada)What a shame that this had happened but despite that hardly a sole here is selling their Volvo because I look everyday for one and rarely find an ad. So there you have it I guess we must be real madd hatters for owning and self repairing/maintaining our beloved Volvos. 2) I thought mistakenly that your thread was perpetrated by the original poster who seems to be having some fun cutting up other NG advisors and the desire to be advised. I apologize to you not the originator of the thread and then while I'm here another person wrote that the DYI's screw up 2-3 more things due to ineptedness (if that's a real word but you all know what it means)and that's BS, the information shared here is precise and links to Brickboard and the like have diagrams and useful how to's for the DYI's,I challenge anyone who thinks we are all wasting our time in this valuable NG to camp out on pontiac NG or what ever GM campground and read the desparate GM owners expose the bad raps they get (daily) or ask stuff that even if they got a hint of what was possibly wrong with their cars would not have level of competence, tools, and proper guidance from advisors there. Yet we should buy a Cavalier because there are so many wrecks available...NOT! parts wear so fast in a GM that I wouldn't spend a dime on eletrical, fuel, or immission parts and if couldn't get new would add my GM junker to the growing pile of scrap heaps out there and replace it with a 240 any day of the week.

"dan" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com... | Stephen M. Henning wrote: | > I wrote: | >

| >>>My dealer posts all his charges in advance. No surprises. He usually | >>>adds extra perks that are free when I go in. He knows that if he keeps | >>>me happy I will buy several more Volvos from him. The maintenance in | >>>minimal even though I drive my cars 180,000 miles. Routine maintenance | >>>costs about 1% TO 1.5% of purchase price annually. That is less than I | >>>loose to inflation and much less than I loose to depreciation. | >

| >

| > dan replied: | >

| >>If this group was moderated and I was the moderator and you posted | >>like you did I would send you a warning and you would be asked to either | >>re-word and offer an apology or face being kicked off. | >>So after all is said and done from the rest of the threads of haven't | >>even read yet I think you need to make another follow up post or camp in | >>another bleeding NG who thrive on such style of writing. | >

| >

| > What pushed your button? I am posting it again but didn't change | > anything. Because I have a good dealer doesn't mean you can't work on | > your own car. Be my guest. I make some repairs myself also. | >

| > By the way, you needn't post your articles multiple times. Maybe your | > moderator ego should send yourself a warning. | >

| 1) I have been privy to the financial side of running a dealership. A | Toyota dealer, it was apparent the Service revenue paid for all | associated employees and most administrative staff required for the | sales office and had they not sold any cars and only serviced them they | boasted that if they could do with out all salaried sales staff profits | would make it a much more succesful business and excellent comfortable | living for the dealer principal, naturally Toyota Canada will not allow | you to open up shop with out selling new cars. I find it hard to believe | that this supposed dealer gives all its customers the honest and level | headed quotations on line as you say with perks and so on, but if so | your lucky, perhaps they are getting more than what you either don't | know or forgot to tell here in this news group. One example of that is | there are many parts costs that have increased since Ford took the helm | or majority shareholder status where they must have made the decision to | stop giving long time Volvo owners with excessive or accumulated miles | on the OD readout any perks and/or parts discounts (at least in Ontario | Canada)What a shame that this had happened but despite that hardly a | sole here is selling their Volvo because I look everyday for one and | rarely find an ad. So there you have it I guess we must be real madd | hatters for owning and self repairing/maintaining our beloved Volvos. | | 2) I thought mistakenly that your thread was perpetrated by the original | poster who seems to be having some fun cutting up other NG advisors and | the desire to be advised. I apologize to you not the originator of the | thread and then while I'm here another person wrote that the DYI's screw | up 2-3 more things due to ineptedness (if that's a real word but you all | know what it means)and that's BS, the information shared here is precise | and links to Brickboard and the like have diagrams and useful how to's | for the DYI's,I challenge anyone who thinks we are all wasting our time | in this valuable NG to camp out on pontiac NG or what ever GM campground | and read the desparate GM owners expose the bad raps they get (daily) or | ask stuff that even if they got a hint of what was possibly wrong with | their cars would not have level of competence, tools, and proper | guidance from advisors there. Yet we should buy a Cavalier because there | are so many wrecks available...NOT! parts wear so fast in a GM that I | wouldn't spend a dime on eletrical, fuel, or immission parts and if | couldn't get new would add my GM junker to the growing pile of scrap | heaps out there and replace it with a 240 any day of the week.

Could you rewrite this in English, please?

What attracts people to German cars - it used to be superior engineering... Now it's more the prestige of the marque.... German quality has been in decline for a while - now they are trying to outgun everyone in technology, but new tech always breaks down.

Which word isn't written in English Mr. L. Hoser? Hey, if that's the extent of your input with sarcastic comments there are plenty of other enjoyable Ng's you and original poster should camp together in.

I drove a Ford for few years, to it's credit, it always ran, but the downside is it never ran particularly well. Interior was starting to fall apart, transmission was clunky, gas guage had a dead spot, ammeter was broken, temperature guage always read low, got me around fine and I got my money's worth out of it but the Volvo (4 years older) that I got to replace it has been a dream in comparison.

I do like German cars as well, they're nice and solid, and have some class. Problem is they just don't do it for me, I like my quirky Swedes.

On 16/9/04 5:00 AM, in article Zi02d.17063$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com, "Dan" decided to come out from under the bed and slurred:

Hyuk, hyuk,

I bets u iz one of dem city boyz that don¹t knows how to twirl no spanner, eh?

Meh Volvo has a betterer wireless dan meh house, so I needs to make sure it does run real good.

I loves it when you trolls come out from undah da bridge and start suggesting dat us does like to do our own fing are somewhat backwards.

Ya knows what, I'll swap ya mah sista for yer BIC lighter.

Later, as I has to go and pretend to send fings to da internet

Hammo

engineering...

technology,

First of all, I consider Volvo a semi German car, the same goodness of engineering that was what gave MB or BMW their rep in the 70's is evident in Volvos of the same period.

MB and BMW and Audi, and even VW have gone overboard in techno garbage, I agree. There is still a lovely engineering goodness to a 5 series or an E class if you mentally strip all the garbage out. There is no car that is as nice inside as the A6, Audi does ok on the engineering, but they have a Bauhaus version of Italian style, true style in their cars. Volvo has avoided that excess, to a great extent anyway.

The Honda Accord comes, in some iterations, with navi, abs, anti skid, cruise, et al, yet the Honda maintains a very simple interface. DO NOT sneer, the Accord is 90-95% of a BMW or a MB, and it will break down much less then either. The Acura TL is a higher end vehicle by Honda, it shows more gadgets, but still the user interface is so much simpler then BMW and MB, yet, somehow, at least to me despite the obvious wonderful engineering that goes into the TL a E class just seems to exude a certain...something.

The Volvo, be it a 100 or 200 series from the 60's or 70's to the modern 2 series and the 700, 800, and 900, as well as the current 40-60-80 (I am not into SUV's but I am sure the MallMaster XC90 is nice too, I just don't even look at em) all have that feeling that engineers did things to them for good reasons, not just to move the iron...

That's why we like Volvos, and why working on them is often a pleasure, so much more so then that great GM feeling of gee this is just like the 1963 chev whatever my dad taught me to work on cars on....

There is not such thing a German car or semi German car, there are many German cars ranging from the very basic VW/Audi which is the ultimate expression of simplicity to the BMW which thrives on complexity, even when completely unnecessary and to the Mercedes which thrives on status symbols. The Volvo and Saab tend to only use technical complexity when there is a big payoff. Otherwise they stick to the basics. They are indeed Swedish even though not many Volvos are not made in Sweden any more.

Dan, It's DIY not DYI. Sheesh.... Some people prefer to do things for themselves regardless of whether they can afford to pay for it or not. It's all part of the learning process that is life. One of my high school teachers once told me that if you lose the desire to learn you lose the desire to live. Pretty profound for a Sunday morning but so far it has held true.

Jordan 1999 S70 Loaded!

Jordon, I guess you caught me with typo, wow you're good! But get this how about DYI = do yourself idiot LOL, not meant to assassinate the many threads just the first goon who ranted against Volvo do it yourselfers, he forgot to put brain in to a proper forward moving gear, before allowing mouth to get ahead of itself, or syncronizing brain with typing fingers for email, NG posters, and interne(a)t gurus Eh!