(SemiAC) Audi vs. Volvo

[Mike Veglia]

In a message dated Thu, 7 Feb 2008 "Tihol Tiholov" <t.tiholov at gmail.com> wrote:

<< Someone here had a Volvo with some engine issues, but I
 forget
who or I'd have asked. >>

If it was back in 2002 you recalled this from that may have been me. My experience was after a couple of different older Volvo 240 wagons my wife drove, and adored. Great cars. I found a very clean one owner lowish miles 1995 850 turbo wagon because we decided the "family wagon" should become the newest car in the fleet. (At the time our family road trip car was my aging, ~190k mile old '87 5ktq.) What a nightmare. I have owned a whole bunch of cars and trucks over the years and this thing was by far the worst POS I have ever owned in my life. Yes it had engine problems. It had eaten valves on two occasions for the previous owner, but was fixed both times with warranty assistance from Volvo. The first time it got just a valve job, the second time a complete factory new head. I figured that would not be an issue since the head was only ~20k mile old when we bought the car and all the work was done at a Volvo dealer known for good service (if there is such
 a thing). We bought this car in September 2001. In January (I think) 2002 I was driving the car and it suddenly started to run rough for no reason. Hard miss. Yup, burned yet another valve. We did get the same dealership to help get Volvo to cover parts (yet another new head) and we paid labor. When we got the car back we tried to warm back up to it but it was falling apart--literally. Yes, it was quick off the line--IF you could keep the right front from spinning up a plume of tire smoke that would make a drift driver proud. One gets spoiled by the ease at which a quattro can put down power and that FWD 850t would just sit there with the right front tire spinning if you were too heavy with the right foot. However, it handled like crap and rode even worse. The only bright side to that car was it enabled me to finally convince my wife to go look at an Audi wagon instead. As soon as she saw and drove that beautiful pearl 1995 A6q avant she said do what it
 takes to put a deal together, and we did--taking a huge loss, and saying good riddance, to said Volvo. There is nothing that 850t could do as well as the A6q, except straight line acceleration and I generally do not regard that as the highest priority in a family station wagon. Handling, ride, braking, comfort, reliability are so much better there is no comparison IMO. Never mind that that 850t cost us more money and grief in less than a year and ~6-7k miles than the A6 has in the (almost) 6 years and 80k miles to date, and counting.

A good point was made, though, that you are comparing two older highish mile cars. All things being equal (condition, record, etc.) I would go for an Audi hands down myself, based on this (admittedly bad) experience. The only Volvos I will ever buy again will be the traditional RWD "bricks" (and I just did for my son's first car in the form of an '89 240).

Mike Veglia