I just felt like releasing it out to car-minded people.

I post on a lot of car message boards, and since I own a Volvo and spend a lot of my money, time, and effort into it, so naturally I'm on Volvo msg boards. I've been on few boards for many years, as I try my best to contribute as much useful information thru my expenses and experiences, I often find very frustrated and angry with other Volvo owners. Don't get me wrong, I've met many awsome Volvo owners throu out shows and meets, but most of them don't use msg boards.

for one, they are fairly small minded, as you can see I like to try to have different cars and see other options out there, and they seem unable to accept the view that one would like to share, which I guess is really up to each others. Two ,they love shutting others down, Volvo community isn't exactly a large one, nor even close to medium-size, they are really not helping by keeping the community together. Three, lack of ***** I shall say, too many are not willing to try new things with their car, of course there are some who try things that are exactly not my taste like neon lights and rather large spoiler on otherwise stock car.

I just felt like to let it out a little since the people I'm surround with are mostly not into cars, but it just annoys me and I guess to some level hurts knowing that a community with people share same common interest is in such a state.

btw, I bought trunk net for my GS for only $40 Cdn!!!!

 

Funny I am not on any Volvo forums. Which ones?

 

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that one the world's greatest safety nannies, Joan Claybrook, perhaps Ralph Nader's closest protege and the unchallenged Queen of Auto Regulations, has driven Volvos for many years...she loves them.
For those of you who are too young to remember, she was the head of NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) back in the late 1970's Jimmy Carter era when Detroit, under her ever-watchful eye, gave us such junk. Nobody in the car buisness could stand to even be in the same room with her.

 

lol!! I didn't know that, good stuff

 

Well you kinda are right about some of the owners on Volvo forums. I must say that some are quick to put down other makes. But the reason why I believe this is because they are so damn loyal to Volvo. They dont know any better. Back in the 80's I guess(really wouldnt know much since I was born in the 80's) I would say many families were introduced to Volvo because they took a giant step in safety compared to other makes at the time. They love pushing the safety aspect of Volvo in every forum. But in all honesty, the owners are no different than MB owners or BMW owners. They enjoyed that car so much back then that they will never buy a car from another make ever. No matter how many times I see the same customer, with the same S80, XC70, or whatever coming back to the dealership pissed off about something and all the money they are spending, they will never even think about another brand. All they have on there minds is safety, which is not a bad thing. Loyalty I think is the main reason why I think they might come off that way.

The Volvo forum community is quite small. Its funny because when I look up atermarket parts for certain Volvo's they always have the link for Swedespeed.com which to me seems like the official Volvo forums. We usually try to tell our customers about Swedespeed and some do post, but not often at all. Only the real enthusiast post there.

Look around on that site. They have a lot of creative owners there. Its not all that bad. Ive seen pictures of this guys S60R with chrome rims with a fat lip, bodykit and other things. Volvo doesnt have that many aftermarket suppliers to begin with(IPD and Evolve are the only two I can think of right now, but they are the major players), however most there get by with Volvo's enormous accessory choices. They have factory bodykits for the XC90, I think thats pretty daring and different. There is only so much they can do, but they make due with the resources that they have. I know for a fact that today more people are being more creative with Volvos now than they ever were because there soopy almost coupe like designs allow them to. They have become more attractive.

Here at Lexus on the otherhand, we have numerous aftermarket options, and can do so many things with our cars that most cant even do including some German cars.

 

Hey guys,

I drive a 99 C70HPT (as you can see in my sig).... i used to frequent volvospeed.com a lot.... but i can't stand to even go there anymore. They definitely have the stereotypical european car God complex. If anyone owner hints any bit of criticism about Volvo, they are ready to tar-and-feather them. They refuse to believe the later model volvo's are highly unreliable (although a volvo master tech has even admitted to me himself they are electrical nightmares... and then some.... not to mention the $3,000 in unscheduled repairs i've spent in the last year) and they love nothing more than to put down Lexus, i've seen. The word Lexus can't even be brought up on one of those boards without the "souped-up camry" comment coming. They actually claim Lexus interiors are cheap and plastic-like... I guess they've been smoking the good stuff.... my C70 has fake wood and plastic ALL OVER. And thats just Lexus, not to mention their hatred for all other cars. It also seems that as long as they can outgun someone in a straight line it means their car is superior... i guess they never realized that most of the cars have some sort of hideous 65/35 weight distribution. Haldex AWD (S60R) is also an overglorified FWD system with traction control. Sorry to join in the volvo rant, but some of those owners on the volvo boards almost make me want to push my C70 off of a cliff. Nothing will bring me more joy than seeing a turbo IS/SC whip the pants off one of those bricks.

 

I won't comment much b/c I know nothing about Volvo. However, this last one made me want to comment...and no offense to volvo owners....... but the #1 reason why people buy Volvo b/c of the reputation for being the "safest" car, correct? If so, they're not going to go out and put $$$ into making it fast or looking better. .
Now, I will get flamed for this, but almost all of the people that I know who owns volvo (vs. many other makes out there) are boring and dry, just no personality ........flamesuit still on

 

No flaming from me, GS3......

One of the things Volvo found out about 10 years ago was that the two and three-box styling and RWD was getting a little long in the tooth. That's why you first saw the 850 FWD and then, starting in 1997, the transformation of Volvo designs from boxes to today's sleekness, starting with the 1997 C70 Coupe....a beautiful car by any standard. The first S40 and V40 compacts a few years ago were exceptions to that trend, partly because they were not pure Volvo but a joint Volvo-Mitsubushi design built in Holland, but now even they have converted to the new Volvo sleekness and AWD options. And, of course, there are now the sport-sedan R models to appeal to the high-performance enthusiasts, too. The only remaining Volvo in the American market with even a hint of a boxy design is the rear-end of the XC70 Cross-Country....and that is because it is a purpose-designed high-ground-clearance AWD wagon for deep snow or mild off-roading.

 

hahahaha, yea, that's one reason why my dad bought the Volvo back in 91, he wanted the safety and he loved the bodykit, there are a lot of people have modified Volvos at a very professional level ones you would just drop your jaws with the attention to details.

but then again, variety always bring good flavours into the world, if you guys want I can post up some of the very awsomely done up Volvos.

 

Volvo has had a couple other performance-minded cars throughout the years. The P1800 and 142e come to mind. My favorite ones were the turbo 240s from the early 80's. Except for fatter wheels and a lower stance (and some discrete badges) it was hard to tell, but it could put the hurt on the BMW sedan's of the day. The 850T-5 R/R cars were fairly nasty too - except they were front wheel drive.

I have owned a couple Volvo's and was considering a new S40 T5 as a replacement for my GS300, so I spent some time on the Swedespeed site. I agree that a lot of folks there are a little closed minded and ignore extensive software problems in favor of hatching grand delusions of there car's doing battle with BMW 330s.

As for the mention of Haldex - it is actually a very clever and sophisticated system. You may want to look a little more closely before judging. Certainly delivers better fuel economy and will engage within 1/7th wheel rotation (in other words, nearly transparant).