Volvo 480...?

I don't know much about them but have read a bit about them on the owners club forum. I spoke to the owner of a nice one at a local show and he told me about the water leaks his suffered from. After parking on a slope he would get water coming into the car not sure if that's a common problem though.

Great cars, ignore the horror stories - everything is an easy fix! Try and get a turbo, they are great fun with a few tweaks, good on fuel and basically good daily's.

I've had 3 of them and loved them all...

i had one of the early ones when it was still a current model - "D" plate. added nearly 100k to it in just over a year without major mishap. MoT fail on a rear seat belt (dealer only and a few hundred £'s) had it moving on.

it would change it's own oil by virtue of all the leaks and top-ups required but it really wasn't at all difficult to own. the ignition barrel lunched itself which was, again, dealer only. the coolant fan seized, predictably on the hottest day of the year in heavy traffic. g/friend of the time was in it on that day and she didn't twig but it got from Milton Keynes to Buckingham in that condition and still wasn't dead.

mine didn't have leaky rear lights and the info system worked but i believe they fail. mine was plagued with "buzzy" plastics which had me stuffing bits of card or felt into trim gaps. mine was black and keeping the plastic panels free of streaks was a pig until i started using furniture polish on it instead of car polish

not the most dynamic thing i ever had but (mine was) robust, reliable and cheap to own. turbo version would be a better choice i'd think

paul

They drive quite good, they look good.

480 specific parts are tricky to get. Engine/gearbox wise not too bad, but get a Turbo. These tend to have less trouble than the Renault electronics on the N/A models.

Rear area needs a thoroughly look before buying.
-Rear arches can/ will rot
-Rear inner bumper can/ will rot
-Rear lights can be UV damaged, and let water through. Check the spare wheel area and remove the rear boot trims on the sides to check if the floor behind the wheel arches is solid.

Electronics can be funny if the CEM acts up. Sometimes resoldering helps.
But the plastic interior trims are fiddely to undo and break easily.

Check volvo 480 europe forum and site for more.

They have sooo much more appeal now than they did back in the day! Why?!!!

My old one that I gutted (after a solid year of motoring and still regret doing it), people didnt even know what it was when it went past them.





Awesome car, get one now while you still can. They are dropping like flies being broken as donors or scrapped by people owning them from new.
Yeah they leak water through the rear lights and the cem plays up, but its awesome, and all cars have their faults.

I remember that thread!

Would also like to add these two:

oooh ... I was after one as a daily when I was looking, but it needed to be black to match the C30

I missed buying one off here last year as I got back from work a day later than planned. Looked good and was about £600. Still look at them a lot. So yeah, do it if you haven't already, drive a wedge shaped car with flippy lights, why wouldn't you.