1991 Volvo 440 GL review from Estonia

There is this saying 'Sooner or later, every car becomes an Opel'. This had happened to this particular Volvo, but I didn't understand it until it was too late.

Both springs of front suspension needed changing immediately after buying (total cost: EUR 92).

Idle control motor failed. Most of the time it worked OK, but sometimes the revs stayed at 1800-2000 and refused to go lower for 10 seconds or so. Finally, one day when I started the car, the engine just decided to work at 4500 rpm and wouldn't go any lower. After standing a couple of hours, the problem had disappeared, but I decided to get it fixed. Unfortunately, the replacement part wasn't available and the mechanic had to fix the old idle control motor, which cost me 64 EUR.

Some ball bearings inside the generator started to make a lot of noise and I had them replaced (cost: 23 EUR).

Mysterious high power consumption when standing - ca 250-270 mA. I suspect it was the fault of broken 3rd party alarm, but never really checked it. It ate my new battery in 2 months!

Mileage counter didn't work already when I bought it (stuck at 229,999 km). Also, the speedometer took some time to "wake up" in the morning - it started showing the speed only after driving a kilometer or so).

Sometimes had trouble shifting into first gear. Had to to some frantic fiddling in front of streetlights :-)

The car had some body rust, but nothing too bad considering the climate here in Estonia.

Finally, when I had had the car for 3 months, the engine developed a massive oil leak. At that point, I just got fed up and decided to sell it cheaply.

Despite of all the problems, the car was quite good when it worked. Very comfortable to drive.

And it never left me on the road.

The "don't know" answer to the question whether or not I would buy another Volvo means that I probably would, but not that old.