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Estate(s) of the nation - Gagging to get started on Volvo 265 GLE project 😀


Heidel_Kakao

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Hi I have decided having not bought a car for at least five years to rectify this situation. I am embarking somewhat optimistically in an attempt to own and sample as many different estate cars as possible, no idea how well I will get on or how long my mojo will last before I give up but fingers crossed.

 

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The starting position is that I have owned three different estates so far with the Volvo 940 still in my possession, to date all have been rear wheel drive.

 

Introducing the first new entry which I won on Ebay this morning!

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http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/142411487376

 

A fairly cautious start to the project so it's sub £500, just down the road from me and has a long MOT. Not the most exciting start as I could have just spunked £5000 on something totally out there but it should hopefully prove somewhat interesting. It will be the first AWD estate that I have owned so there is that. I will be collecting it sometime next week so stay tuned for an obligatory petrol station photo.

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What a great idea, are you going to fully test them with wardrobe and chest of drawers attempted fittings?

Not sure about wardobes lol but they will have to pass the twin greyhound doggo test.

Great to drive but a bit thirsty.

I walk to work so fuel consumption is one concern I don't have thankfully :-D

Oooh, a slow* Impreza that has escaped WRXification ! Great find !

 

I recall they're fairly pleasant to drive, and mechanically indestructible.

It even has steel wheels!

 

While waiting for the Impreza to arrive I may as well do a retrospective of the estates I have owned up to this point. First up the Mazda, I got this off Ebay in August 2007, hard to believe it was nearly 10 years ago now! I only know when I got it due to this thread http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/36795 I posted on Retro Rides back in the day, normally my memory is pretty terrible. I bought it randomly for £400 with 12 months MOT and stupidly low miles, I had no need for an estate at the time but it was cool, RWD and Japanese which I was into in a big way back then. It was a great car but really in too nice condition for me, I am not very good at looking after cars honestly & they always seem to detoriate in my ownership whereas other people buy cars and actually manage to improve them lol. I had some great times with it though & I even drove it to Holland in 2008 for the Japan Classic Sunday show, to date this is still the longest journey I have ever undertaken in a car & the only time I have driven to the continent and back. I ended up selling it in 2010. I sold it on Ebay & the guy who bought it said they were planning on turning it into a pro street dragster! As far as I can tell this never happened though & a DVLA search brings up nothing on it so I guess it was either scrapped or is still sitting around off road somewhere.

 

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As purchased, the wheel trims went straight in the bin, and the pinstripes were removed shortly afterwards as well

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Pretty roomy inside for a smallish estate

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Originally a West Country car

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1490cc of pure Powah!!!!

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18,000 miles at purchase!

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With Matt's(I think) FWD 323 at an Old Japanese Car meet at Billing. Funny to think you could buy a FWD saloon or RWD estate at the same time back in period.

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I fitted an 8 track player to it for shits and giggles

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Camping in Holland 2008

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At JCS in Holland 2008, trying on some totally OTT wheels courtesy of TheDoctor!

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Covered in snow in Birmingham

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Just before I sold it :(

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That Mazda is a lovely piece of history.

 

I've had four of those early n/a Impreza wagons. I love the small estate style of them, the generic 90's car-ness, but also the hidden capability they have. I'm guessing this is a 2.0 GL, the ad doesn't say.

It should perform well enough, if slightly thirsty.

The 1.8's slow, the 1.6's are dire.

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When you're ready I would be happy to swap my scruffy XM estate for the very nice Volvo :)

That could certainly be worthy of consideration! What year and engine is it?

 

FACT: your title is the one I used for my first published feature in Classic Car Weekly almost 11 years ago. I similarly am rather fond of load luggers, though I've owned only a few.

That's a cool factoid, it is a good title & I am not surprised that someone beat me to using it. I would love to own the BX estate of many shiters at some point if that comes up for sale again.

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Only problem I can see is that you appear to have already owned the best estate car ever

 

(The Granada, I mean the Granada)

 

 

What?

Oh dear lol

 

The Granada. Not really much to say about this one as I am pretty sure it's the car I have owned for the shortest period. Bought on Ebay as a rebound purchase when I failed to win something else that I was after, I think I paid around £600 for it, again at the time I had no need for an estate. Within a few weeks of buying it the auto box shat itself and as I had not really gelled with the car I just stuck it back on Ebay & took a bit of a hit. It basically put me off both Fords & automatics in one fell swoop & I have avoided them ever since, I didn't write about it on the internet at the time & the only photos I have of it are the ones I took for the Ebay ad. DVLA search shows it as untaxed since 2007 so I guess it probably went round the oval. Maybe I should consider revisiting one of these to give it another chance but they go for more than I would be prepared to spend so I doubt it will happen.

 

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My old Allegro, Riva & my mothers old Discovery in the background.

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The Volvo. Probably the best car I have ever owned. The original reason for purchase was that myself and a few mates were planning on attending a Berget airsoft event in Sweden & decided it would be a good idea to make a road trip out of it. I was the only one who could drive and so I was tasked with choosing a suitable vehicle and at the time a Volvo 940 seemed the ideal thing to drive to Sweden in. In the end the trip never happened but I still have the car six years later. I got it in March 2011 after seeing it on Gumtree, initially the asking price was around £700 and it was being sold by a lady in Loughborough on behalf of her next door neighbour that had moved to another country. The car seemed decent but there was no movement on the price so I left it & carried on looking at a few other 940's. After a month or so I still hadn't found one worth buying & I noticed this one was still for sale so I made on offer of £450 I think and they accepted.

 

Inevitably the roadtrip fell through but I was still having fun with the car so decided to keep it, a year later in 2012 I bought a house & got my first dog and the Volvo already had a dog guard so that was ideal lol. These things really are great cars, fast enough to be entertaining, boringly reliable, supremely practical, comfortable to drive for long distances, great in winter, etc etc.

When I was looking for a 940 I was pretty specific about which one I wanted, it had to be a 2.3 turbo with the M90 five speed manual rather than the earlier 4 speed with overdrive or an automatic. This one is SE trim as well so the leather interior was a bonus but it doesn't have aircon which is only annoying on a few days of the year so not the end of the world.

 

At the time of purchase it had 93,000 miles on it as I was trying to find one with less 100K miles which as most of them seem to be closer to or in excess of 200K miles was not an easy task. It currently has 114,000 odd miles on it so I have done over 20K trouble free miles in it with minimal maintenance, no welding has ever been needed to get it through the MOT, just normal service items like exhaust or brakes etc.

 

It will be interesting to see how other estates compare to the 940 as it is currently the high bar that all others will be judged against. For a car that I have owned for so long I have virtually no photos of it which is a shame, these couple were taken at SF14.

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So now I am all up to date and looking forward to getting the Subaru, have arranged to collect it on Thursday night, can't wait.

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I now have Impreza. First impressions? I really like it. I have only driven it 10 miles so far but it drives very nicely, it's the first automatic that I have had since the disaster that was the Granada so that took a little getting used to but I do find that it promotes a more relaxed driving style compared to a manual. It's about as fast as you would expect a 2 litre N/A auto to be but it goes well enough. It feels very solid and tight which backs up the 78,000 recorded miles.

 

Condition wise it seems very original and unmessed with, it still has the factory stereo cassette head unit, I think the owners just listened to the radio, there is a warning sticker on the drivers side door that I think most people would have ripped off by now lol. What little equipment it has all seems to work fine, it has electric windows all round and that is about it as far as toys go. What really lets it down is the paintwork, I may try to make this better but I have never polished a car so don't get your hopes up.

 

Tomorrow will see me driving to Gloucester in it to collect a dog guard for it, an 80 mile round trip should allow me judge it a lot better. A bit far maybe just to get a dog guard but when you have that "new" car novelty any excuse to drive it is welcome.

 

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Wonky number plate, will have to sort that out as it's rather annoying

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No turbo's to see here, move along please

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Boot smaller than I was expecting, hope the dogs don't mind! Also came with new wiper blades so bonus

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Free gaffer tape included, not sure why maybe some kind of leak?

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Interior is pretty tidy

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Cannot believe that no one has removed this in the last 20 years

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Guest Hooli

Liking the Scoob, I had a 2.5 Leggy auto for a while. Great car but it was allergic to keeping any water inside.

 

Wait till it rains, throw it at a bend at approx 'I'm gonna die +10%' lift mid bend to enjoy sideways & boot it for instant straightness & safety.

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Pleasing. A lack of low box is disappointing - manual transmission only?

As I understand it all non-turbot manuals had the high/low ratio box.

 

 

 

The gaffer tape above the light cluster is an attempt to seal a common leak, the light clusters leak into the boot. 

 

Lift up the spare and if there isn't a lake there you're doing well.

 

You can unbolt and remove the light clusters, scrape off the old sealant and apply new - some people use Sikaflex type stuff, I found a recommendation to use Carafax non-setting bedding mastic on a Subaru forum and it seemed to do the trick on mine.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Carafax-Caraseal-Non-Drying-bedding-sealant-IDL-99-Cream-X1-/112450138125?hash=item1a2e8cf00d:g:-ioAAOSwnK9ZQDtE

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Pleasing. A lack of low box is disappointing - manual transmission only?

I didn't even know that low box was a thing that they could have!

 

 

its a week on sunday

 

go - you might get a tea from me and meet eddie rattley :D

Tempting! Put me down for a maybe but very unlikely that I can make it to be honest.

 

The gaffer tape above the light cluster is an attempt to seal a common leak, the light clusters leak into the boot. 

 

Lift up the spare and if there isn't a lake there you're doing well.

Cheers, will have to investigate further then.

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I had a legacy outback a couple of years back (bought from kinkersaab on here incidentally) and it had the same sticker on the driver's door which someone started to peel off, then decided to leave it as it left glue residue that was impossible to remove. Verdict: leave sticker!

 

I've also now got Dave_Q's old Impreza wagon, so it's nice to see another one.

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Dog guard now collected, it's a genuine Subaru item for £20 plus the cost of a round trip to Gloucester. I have done over 100 miles in this now and it really is starting to grow on me. I really like how the interior is laid out in that logical typical Japanese style and it is very relaxing to drive.

 

I have found a couple of problems with it so far. At motorway speeds there is an annoying whistling noise from the drivers door seal, they are frameless doors which I have never had on a car before. The second issue which again is rather minor is that the rear windscreen washer doesn't work, I can hear the pump motor operating but no fluid comes out, will have to investigate further when I get chance.

 

I need to go round to my moms house to grab a CD player to put in it as I can't live with just having a tape deck for very long! Next update will hopefully involve greyhound action, not sure if they will appreciate it or not compared to the Volvo.

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Well done on the Impreza, sounds like a great buy.

 

I well remember your 323 estate, seen here in the company of like-minded folk at Billing (nearly 10 years ago?!?!).

 

I also recall this happening when you locked your keys in it........

 

Yeah that was a great day out, getting locked out of my car was pretty embarrassing but that random passing RAC guy who helpfully broke into my car for me sure saved the day.

http://oldjapanesecar.proboards.com/thread/749/billing-autumn-2008-oct-postponed

Seems like it was September 2007. Scary to think it was nearly a decade ago! Would be fun to have a ten year reunion lol. I kind of drifted away from Retro Rides and Old Japanese Car over time but have kept up with Autoshite but even that has been sporadic.

 

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