Interesting about the gremlins Scott, did you have it from new? My neighbour has just bought a 13 plated one. He's happy as Larry in it. (retired, kid of 60ish and drove a van for the last 20 years)
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No, it was around 8 years old with a little over the 100K mark under its belt. Was very economical and fast, but felt a little too small for me, and the dog found it a squezze in the boot. Looked smart though, which is helped by them being in production without any major facelifts for around a decade, and only recently ceasing production.
It developed a wiper fault, you'd switch them on and nothing, had to stop pop the bonnet and pull the fuse to reset the system, would work fine after that. Fault occurred once a month but you only found out once it was raining, asked a Volvo specialist and they said they'd only encountered this once before, I asked them how they fixed it and the reply was "replaced everything"! So decided to mull it over and live with it for a bit longer, a sudden down pour when driving at motorway speeds in the fast lane and finding your wipers won't turn on was one of the nails in its coffin.
Alternator suffered sudden total failure just before Christmas, fortunately ECP had it in stock, so an enjoyable Saturday afternoon was spent changing it. Then it started occasionally coughing when accelerating through 2nd gear, it shouldn't be doing that! The final straw was 2nd syncro getting weak and becoming stiff when the box was cold, oil was changed for the correct type and no improvement, so it was part ex'd against the Merc.
It handled well, looked great both inside and out, but I didn't get the feeling it would last anywhere near as long as the Vectra that it had replaced. More Ford Focus in a fancy dress than Volvo really.
"Mercs are old mans cars", I can live with that. I'm often told that I'm older than my years, plus the Merc gets so many compliments and everyone thinks its worth way more than it is! Smart, comfortable and economical that'll do nicely thank you.
