Volvo S40 vs. Accord and Camry (luxury, vehicles, brakes, best)

[Stu Barnes]

Looking to get a 2004-2005 car with 3 goals, gas mileage, dependablity and cost maintenance. I was looking at accords and camry's and then I see the volvo is in the same price range and have always heard volvo was a good car. opinions?

[glxyman21]

Yes, Volvos are good and very solid built Swedish cars. My uncle had ones that went over 200,000 miles. They will be more solid feeling in build quality as well as on road dynamics compared to the Honda or Toyota as it is a European car made for European driving styles. Costs for repairs might be higher than the Honda or Toyota as Volvo is considered a "luxury" type car, but then again in this day and age with all the computers and technological stuff, most car repairs are expensive to begin with.

[tinman01]

Never heard anyone complain in any way about a volvo. Repairs are the downside of them though. Big bucks for relatively minor things. Volvo in cost is to toyota what toyota is to GM.
Example a starter for a Chevey small block maybe $30 or $40.00. Toyota no less than $150.00. I am a Toyota man through and through. Upside? Toyota's almost never have fails in the first 5 or 6 years or more. My Tacoma 126,000 miles and is 8 years old? Nothing yet. Changed the brakes at 80 grand. Needlessly they were still good. Clutch at 110,000 needlessly still like new. I do most of my own work so I am a bit freaky with making sure all routine maintenance is done. With European cars routine maintenance is an absolute must.

[oakparkdude]

We've got a 2004 Volvo S40. We like it a lot and haven't had any real problems with it so far. Its smaller than an accord or camry and repairs, when you need them, are going to be pricier. It has a superior crash test rating than an accord or camry, on the other hand.

[ArizonaBear]

The Volvo S40 is essentially a Mazda3------both are owned by Ford.

[Marcian]

I'm the owner of 2 Volvos, 1990 240 Station wagon and 1998 S-70 both were very expensive in regular maintenance and very costly in repairs both done at the dealership. It's a safe car but with very poor realibility in the long run being a money pit in both cases (why did I buy a S-70? but not Toyota ???). Currently, I'm a happy owner of the Toyota Camry and I would strongly recommend it.

[yo vanilla]

I worked at a volvo dealer for a few years, from say 2001-2004. this was a time period where volvo was clearly destroying their reputation for solid, reliable vehicles. i've seen many many many volvos with upwards of 250K on them but they were all old relics from the 80's. it was even rare to see a solid one from the mid 90's, the first of the FWD's.

once the P2 platform came along in 1998 they started having alot of issues. electrical mainly; i always used to say it was a very rare occasion to see a volvo engine opened up in the shop. i remember exactly one engine getting replaced and the guy had run the oil dry.

there's a lot of things i like about volvo, but... i don't want to own one of today's.

[davfar]

I have an 01 S40 with going on 135,000 miles and havent had too many major problems besides the normal wear and tear issues.

My signal lights stopped working one time...kinda sucked...and just found out (thanks to someone pulling up next to me to inform me) that my brake lights don't work! We'll see what that situation is about when I bring it in tomorrow!!

[tigerclaws]

BTW, the newer Accord is now a full sized car not to mention the VCM (variable cylinder management) technology that is available on their V6 models.

[Jareb]

I had a 1993 Volvo 240 that I sold this year- it had 330,000 miles on it! Best car I ever owned by far. Dont know about them since Ford bought Volvo.