Volvo opinion
The preamble may appear to be devoted to our Mitsubishi campervan but this opinion essentially concerns our ‘B’ reg Volvo 740 GLE Automatic, colour metallic blue so I must ask you, dear Reader, to bear with me, please, for a paragraph or two (or three).
We bought it, our first ever Volvo, last June at the same time as we bought a Mitsubishi campervan. I mention this because it was through buying the van that we were offered the Volvo. The man from whom we bought the van drove it down to Ashford from his home in the ancient and attractive Kentish city of Rochester. He had forgotten a few items belonging to the van so returned home to get them. While there, he bumped into a friend of his who, during their chat, mentioned he was selling a Volvo for a friend who needed the cash. He rang me and told me about the circumstances and asked if I might be interested as it was only £350 and in good condition. I agreed to buy it sight unseen on his recommendation. When I discovered it was LRP fuel, I changed my mind about buying it. The seller then rang his lady friend who agreed to knock off £60. Any car at £290 with a full year’s MoT is pretty much a gift nowadays so I bought it there and then and the seller rode home to Rochester in the campervan man’s car.
Anyway, back to the Volvo, the Mitsubishi has left our ownership and should now be somewhere in Greece or at least en route because we recently converted it into Premium Bonds by the simple expedient of selling it and using the cash to buy lots of these wonderful items (op coming soon) . I am so impressed with its performance, its power & its comfort but most especially with the complete lack of any rust on the bodywork. I had heard somewhere at some time that Swedish steel is so much better than any other, German included and here is living proof. Well, not actually living but I’m sure you get the idea. I haven’t had to put in a drop of engine oil as yet nor of transmission fluid for the automatic gearbox. The boot is very spacious; I tell you that you can put in it 3 bikes (as long as you have first removed the wheels and pedals and given the handlebars a turn through 90°).
The other aspect with which I have been very impressed is the nearest Volvo showroom and service centre which is just a 300 yard walk from our house. This factor had no influence on my originally purchasing the vehicle as I had been unaware of the showroom’s connection with Volvo despite the quite large, actually very big, notice above the front entrance advertising this fact. Till then, I’d just been idly driving past the showroom without the sign’s significance impinging on my idle brain cells. The staff have (so far) been very friendly towards me and have dealt competently, fairly and efficiently with our car. The Pentagon Club, for owners of cars older than 8 years, seems to live up to the firm’s claims as I paid £140 instead of the £240 odd I would have been charged on the only occasion so far when I have had to have actual mechanical work carried out on it (on the tuning, timing and automatic mechanism, in fact). The moral of this would appear to be that it's best to buy an older, therefore cheaper, 2nd hand Volvo rather than an expensive new one. But that can't be right, can it?
It has a 2.3 litre engine but I keep fuel consumption comparatively low by not driving at lunatic speeds nor do I expect it to accelerate from slow to extremely rapid in 1 second by suddenly and brutally ramming the throttle pedal into Kickdown mode with all my strength.
All in all, this was definitely a very perspicacious buy on my part and I sincerely hope that, by couching this opinion in such glowing terms, I have not too sorely tempted the Lady Providence.