A cheap reliable motor for under £250-your prayers have been answered! (Volvo 340/360)

Member Name: blemtroot5

Product:	Volvo 340/360
Date:	03/12/03 (307 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Reliable, Easy DIY

Disadvantages: Twitchy handling, Deeply unfashionable

Although this car is as ugly as a bag of snakes and rattly as a bag of spanners, the Volvo "pig" will keep on going and might even become your friend!

My '89 1.4 5-speed manual GL cost me £230 with a full year's MOT and has yet to let me down. Put another way, this is less than the cost of one month's repayments or a main-dealer service on a new/nearly new car which will cost you £1000's a year in depreciation. (the most I can lose is £230-depreciation included!)

This car has big car comfort and feel on the road, loads of room (I moved house in mine!) and although it handles a bit tricky, the brakes are good should you get into trouble, and if anyone hits one of these, they come off worst!

The down side- economy is not the 340's strong point, although I manage 31mpg commuting and 38-40 on a run. Rust can hit the front crossmembers hard, and the electrics can be a bit weak on some models ( mine gets through a tail-light bulb (69p!) every month or so, and the starter sometimes needs 2-3 turns of the key to kick in). Insuance (group7) is also higher than, say a 1,4 escort of the same age, but you will make that back in reliability. Hard-driven cars also suffer from prop-shaft faults, but as boy-racers avoid these like the plague this is seldom a problem. Water/condensation can get into the distributor causing misfire, but lather said object in grease and you've no problem.Scrapyards are full of them so parts are no problem.

Due to it's lack of street cred, a 340 will never be stolen, vandalized or stopped by the
police. Despite its age, I just did a round trip of 500 miles in mine this weekend in awful weather and never used a drop of oil or water.

All in all, a cheap banger that does what it says on the tin-and more- in comfort!

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