2000 Volvo S80 SE review from UK and Ireland

The bulbs of both front and rear lights keep burning out - that is the main reliability problem. A bulb blows roughly every 6 months. Replacing it is cheap, but a nuisance. Apart from that, there are no major complaints.

A very comfortable, solid, and safe car, with good highway cruising, but somewhat sluggish acceleration.

The clutch is very soft and smooth. The accelerator is 'fly-by-wire' - elecronic control and you dont always feel the direct impact of pressing the pedal on the acceleration. There seems to be a big gap between first and second gear so departing from a standstill in first can shoot you off with a lot of noise while departing in second gear can easily stall the engine unless you push down the throttle, again making a lot of noise. The best thing to do is set off in first and almost immediately go to second. This makes driving in city traffic a little bit unpleasant.

However third, fouth and fifth gears are great and it can reach very high speeds once on the motorway, making cruising a real pleasure. Interior noise is very low and comfort very high.

The brakes bite very hard. Hitting the brakes for the first time can shoot you off towards the windscreen. The Swedish designers really know their safety features well. To brake smoothly you need to press the pedal gently. The strange thing is that the brake pedal does not offer your foot resistance in proportion to the braking force. However, once you get used to it, it is not a problem at all.

Overall: a good car if you like relaxed driving and also if you do a lot of motorway mileage but not too good in traffic and rather poor acceleration due to its low power to weight ratio.