i thought i would join in and do a diary of my journey into 480 ownership! i am on my 3rd 480 now.
i used to drive a mini daily, it was easy to work on and fun, but it was so slow, and i was getting a bad back from driving it all the time. I started looking around for possible replacement cars, the replacement couldn't be something like a ford escort, it had to have some character (i hate boring cars.)
around the same time my mate got a new car, he rang me up and told me he had bought a volvo; i laughed at him!
he told me it was the one with the pop up lights, i thought it sounded interesting and drove to his to check it out.
He had bought a 1991 1.7 es in black, it looked pretty nice and sitting inside was really comfortable, i loved all the gadgets and how low to the ground it felt inside. I took it for a drive around the block and was surprised by the handling and speed of the car; after that drive i knew i wanted one of my own
which leads to my first 480, a 1995 2 litre es in flame red with jacquard interior.
It was on a local garage forecourt for £1295 (pretty expensive) i checked it out, making sure all the electrical equipment worked, which it all did, and took it for a test drive; it was all good! i offered the guy £850 and he ripped my arm off! should have offered him less
i did about 8000 miles in that car, and it was totally reliable, just needing a new heater matrix during my ownership.
I started getting the itch for a turbo though and saw a nice looking 1994 turbo in black on ebay, i won it for £800, and sold the es to my neighbours (who loved it to bits! they just sold it a few days ago though as they are moving to america).
the turbo used to belong to a forum member before the last owner bought it, and looking at his old posts, appeared to have been well looked after.
however all was not right with the car, and after quite a few problems it started playing up just before i went to rich's to get the richmod done.
rich had a look at it with me, and came to the conclusion that either the turbo was dead or the catalytic converter had collapsed. Add this to the ever mounting list of other problems and i needed to get rid of it!
i knew i wouldn't get much for it so i decided to break it up for spares. It is still sitting by my garage in pieces waiting for the crusher.
moving on to my latest car, a 1991 turbo in oyster grey metallic, with air con and lots of optional extras. and lots of spares too.
this is the best one i have owned! the previous owner was a guy that had owned it from new, and looked after it amazingly well. if anything was not right then it was relaced with genuine volvo parts! the car is incredibly clean and has been totally reliable other than a rough idle, which i am now addressing.
first thing i did was take the full leather out of my other car, to put in to the new one, however the seat heating wasn't working on the leather seats, so i removed the covers and swapped them onto the ones from the new car. it took a while but it was worth it.
i have done alost 10k in my new turbo now and i love it. I have continued the old owners traditions by only using genuine parts on it and keeping it really clean.
future changes i have in mind will probably include fitting the taurus wheels from the black turbo, and maybe putting the vented disc assemblies on it too, and eventually i will get a richmod.
thats it for now.
cheers
Dan
