What up Veeky Forums

Why recommended its shit moron? Its a focus2 for murrica. Buy mazda 3.

i like

>Why do so many people recommend this car?

Ancient muh reliability memes.

I don't know many people recommending it, but I personally think it is a great little car.
It is compact, the interior is minimalist yet functional. The seats are actually very comfortable- I have driven countless 750 mile trips without physical fatigue from the seat. In those trips I only have to fill twice, once at the beginning of the journey, and then another time about halfway through. If you have the T5, then it has plenty of power for cruising around, and the turbo can definitely be heard. If you have the AWD you will find that it is a very cool and collected car when driving on ice and snow. The traction control is really quite astounding. As a northerner I care deeply about this feature. When I can quickly take off from a stop and turn any direction and go that direction without hesitation, it is an amazing feeling. I got one that had every feature minus the navigation (wouldn't want it anyway), and I can say I wouldn't change a thing.
If you look at the car from a performance standpoint, you will soon find yourself looking at the K16 turbo (from the Focus RS), new injectors, a quick ECU tune, and a 3" downpipe to cat-back exhaust, to be pushing out ~350 wheel horsepower with torque matching at ~350 ft-lbs. Of course you can go further, but that is an excellent starting point. You could switch to a cold-air intake, but the intake is already force-fed through the grill, I don't know why you would want to ruin that.

I'll stop here, but that's just my 2 cents on the car.

Interesting, what else can you tell me about volvo engines? Any particular common issues? Any model years to avoid?

Owner of a 2007 right here.

Fucking great cars if they are well maintained and not beat to shit. My T5 was babied with its first owner and it shows really well.

One thing I will say about volvo's is that they are maintenance intensive. You cannot neglect shit on these cars because it WILL bankrupt you. The timing belt, idler pulley, and water pump must be changed at 80-110k intervals MAX because of the interference engine design. Other than that besides random electrical gremlins: basic minimalist interior that has that unique volvo touch, decent MPG with 2.5 T & 2.4i, nice engine note, solid drivetrain, and you will get compliments even if you're driving a base model.

I can tell you quite a bit about volvo engines in general.

The engine in the 2008/09 T5 is the B5254T7 which doesn't suffer from any serious flaws. It is pretty much bullet-proof for intended operation.

Now if you want to talk about other engines, like the V8 found on the 05-ish XC90s, then I can tell you to stay the heck away from it. Main problem was with a lack of drainage at the top of the engine, which would cause water to accumulate in notch of the V. This caused a bearing on the counter-balance shaft to corrode and fail. This was a HUGE problem because it was attached to the timing chain, which would then snap, causing pistons to kiss the valves.

the t5 is one of my favorite engines of all time

yeah just looked at reliability ratings. volvo in generat relatively far in front, but the xc90 in the top 20 worst overall.

what about '05 engines? looking at the 170 hp gas ones but would consider the 140/whatever is over the 170 ones.

The 2.5T B5244T5 found in the S60 (2004-2009) is also a fantastic engine. This engine also does not suffer from any serious flaws. Probably one of the best engines Volvo had made.

I'm sure you know this, but I will mention this anyway:
The two engines mentioned have no serious flaws and are generally reliable. But that is not to say that the engine in the car you get hasn't been neglected or beat to shit and would likely suffer a failure in the near future.

thanks for all the info.

if you want to ramble about volvo engines in general i'd love to read that.

i just skipped through the wiki page on their engines, they all follow the same naming scheme, does that mean they're all related? Over multiple generations i mean.

also theyre "modular" apparently, what kinda modules are we speaking of here?

also it didnt occur to me to slap a ford turbo on. I know they use the same platform but the engines are different if i got that right. obviously you can add whatever you want but do people use mazda parts? same platform too right?

pic unrelated but missing from this thread.

Some parts can be swapped between Mazda's but not all of them. Forums are a good place to ask, but there's really not much of a reason too.

The thing about the turbo-interchangeability is that for some time Ford owned Volvo. In this time they decided to use the T5 engine in the Focus RS. But since the RS was performance oriented, they used the larger K16 turbo. Because the engines are pretty much one in the same, the turbo/exhaust manifold from the RS can be used on the T5.

When taking apart one of these Volvos, you'll find FoMoCo stamped on a lot of parts.

Also I rented a diesel '05(iirc) v50 couple of months ago. Gearbox had reverse on the top left-left, so going into first on traffic lights I'd often hit reverse and scare myself and the poor fuck behind me.

shit i sound like a gramma. i notice has reverse on the most bottom right, what years/gearboxes do I have to avoid to not inevitably reverse into someone?

Volvo interiors are the kind where they look good in the photos, then you go and sit in one at a stealer and realise all the plastics are fucking awful and everything feels like shit.

Why in the fuck would Volvo fit a dogleg shift pattern to a non-performance car?

I really hope it's because of the high torque output of a diesel requiring a gearbox typically suited to a fast car, and a dogleg was the cheapest available, and not because Volvo just did it for a laugh.

Not to mention those XC90s also had shitty outsourced transmissions from GM that would fail all the time.

>and you will get compliments even if you're driving a base model.
My 01 s80 sits in a parking lot with a blown engine and still gets compliments

you know that's funny, I thought the opposite. in pictures they look cold and spartanic, but in person they're actually very inviting, crisp and soft. All the buttons have a very nice soft but distinct click.

not exactly dogleg. like in the pic. 1st is still left-up, R is left-left up, but without pressing down the shifter like on VWs or pulling a ring like in vauhxalls. so you can accidentally hit it when you wanna go into 1st.

If you're American,
It's foreign and expensive to maintain, buy a foreign Toyota instead.

agree on the plastics tho.

It's basically a 2nd gen Focus underneath, with a Volvo engine under the hood.

As is the Mazda 3, nobody cares.

The Focus received a lot of praise for its handling, so I'd say it's not a bad thing.
Many shared parts should be cheap and plentiful, because the Focus sold very well.

Seeing pictures of the floating centre console on the V40 I was pretty excited to sit in one but when I did it just felt like cheap shit thrown together. I wouldn't mind a early 2000's Volvo's to own like a S40 or something, but whenever I'm tyre kicking at a stealer I'm reminded of how shitty the interiors are relative to how smart the outside of the car is.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by spending so much time in VAG trash and BMW's, who's interiors I find to be pretty good, even on cheap ones.

Also shoutout to the A4 B6 glovebox which is large enough to sleep in.

VAG can into interiors, except on the mk4 Golf/Jetta.
>crayon smell

Doesn't look to bad to me, been a long time since I've sat in a MK4 Golf though.

I love creme interiors :^)

I was gonna ask what you usually drive. I'm in a renault so it is a huge step up obv, but my family is all about that VAG and I always hated to sit in those. BMWs are nice tho, no way round that.

Looks and ergonomics are fine, but the quality is, well, lacking, to say the least.

2001 A4, sadly just the plain black plastic trim with cloth seats. I wrapped the accent trim pieces in stainless steel vinyl as I'm too cheap to buy the actual parts.

Pic related is confirmed best colour combo. Problem with VAG interiors of the time is the age like shit. The buttons on the centre console are moulded in white and painted over with black, so all the commonly used buttons wear off and look tacky as hell. Also the arm rests on the door cards are rubberised and wear like crazy too.

I see.

Maybe it's just me but on the A4 I sometimes find the headlight flasher is too easy to activate and I end up flashing people when I mean to indicate. While I agree on the ergonomics, some of the naming is incredibly stupid. On the A4 theres a button labelled 'ECON', which for the first 6 months of me owning the car I thought disabled the air con (which I wanted), but when the light is ON the air con is OFF. Meant that I drove around sweating buckets with the heater on all the time.

Forgot pic :^)

>tfw I live in europe and will never get complimented on driving such a boring car as a Volvo

>both R and 1 are top left
Great thing with safety ring, terrible without it

Is that c1 platform? Its pretty good if so in manual.

This picture alone is nearly making me bite the bullet on an s40.

Dude where have you been

yea theyre c1. i still dont understand why anons call it a ford just cause its on the same base.

i just want one platform shared between all the fucking manufacturers. more knowhow, cheaper to dev and produce. use all the free time and money to make a second shared platform with rwd and maybe even rear engine. id be so happy.

A rebadged Mazda 3 basically.

I don't feel depressed in Volvo interiors, but god damn german car's are depressing, at least those 2 interiors,