Shirley Knott

As a youth I wouldn't have given estates a second thought, but as I've drifted into middle age I've learned the beauty of them. I actually recon lots of cars actually look better in estate format than they do in saloon flavour. To date I've only owned a couple. The first, a late Volvo 940 turbo modelled here by myself and Knott Junior This was replaced by an early P2 V70 for a fraction of what the 940 sold for. The V70 in my (No doubt unpopular) opinion, despite lacking the novelty/retro feel is a superior car in just about every measurable way, so much so that I honesty can't think of anything I'd replace it with.

You're 'middle class' (At least from a sociological standpoint) but that's not based on your household earnings, it's decided by the nature of your profession I can completely relate. I work in compliance for a large UK bank. If I'd have stuck out my apprenticeship as a diesel fitter I'd be earning a lot more now! Also- it's a good point you raise re the Polish comparison and used car prices vs disposable income.

It's actually fairly easy to adjust them, I just used a YouTube video when Mrs Knott had hers. From memory it took no more than 10 minutes. @theshadow, before you buy a new boot lock, access the rear of the mechanism by reaching through from the back seats- Plusgas and gentle persuasion with a hammer got ours moving/working again despite the previous owner insisting it needed replacing.

Social class is determined, as far as I'm aware by profession rather than salary which doesn't really come into it. An example would be a civil servant in an office role earning 16k a year would technically be middle class (White collar 'professional' role) whilst a builder (Blue collar) who earns 35k a year would be considered working class. Sauce- A level Sociology 20 years ago (May the lords of AS forgive me if I am wrong) Meanwhile- Yes, second hand cars now by and large cost more than they did in the past even taking into account inflation.

Just spent the last half hour catching up, there's some great work going on here! The slave cylinders on the Mazda's go all the time as you've mentioned. Aftermarket ones seem to last a year or two, whereas genuine seem to do 5 years plus IME.- In the long run it's still cheaper to go aftermarket such is the price of genuine Mazda parts. We had a little C1 on fleet last year (Essential the same car as the 107 as I'm sure you're aware) It was fun and very simple to work on but just a bit too small for what we needed. It also looked worryingly rusty underneath so it had to go. Ours used a litre of oil every 2000 miles, but a lot of them do I hear. Keep an eye on the water pump, they're a service item but aux driven so not hard to change. Top tip- The small rubber bungs that run along the bottom of the sills just pull out, allowing one to inject copious amounts of the wax of your choice before popping them back in to trap it all in there.

I came here to suggest them too but you beat me to it! I actually won, and still own the one from that roffle that BigManSpaff (Remember him?) basically trolled to death almost de-railing the entire thread. His vitriol towards them was pretty intense. Long story short, s'alright. It's never going to set the world on fire but it's a torquey old thing and with the 8V 2.0 lump it's fairly simple without much to go wrong. It's currently being piloted by my wife on her daily 20 mile commute without much fuss, all the while providing electric everything, climatronic AC and achieving nearly 40mpg.

Yep It's the the one that controls fuelling that caused the issues for me rather than the one that operates the cabin gauge. It tested fine when checked with a multimeter, resistance etc was all ok, but alas a replacement resolved things

Great to see the work you've put into this paying off! This could be a red herring, but when it comes to trouble starting, and revs hunting when first started it might be worth looking at the coolant temperature sensor if this has one. The last red block I had ran (Or didn't) exactly as you describe after I'd fitted a coolant sensor from 'Volvo parts Sweden' on eBay. Fine after the first five minutes, but initial start up was sketchy. After replacing it with a Bosch item normal service was resumed. As mentioned, I'm not sure whether this has a CTS, but my 940 definitely did.

PD130?

Naice. I spend my life almost entirely emersed in VAG and as such I know very little about these. I do admire them from a distance though! Does it have a fridge?

Is it time for guesses yet? Im going to stick my neck out and say you're on the way to collect a diesel 205 in duck egg blue...? Irrespective of any of that, I'm working today so a JB collection saga is just what I need to keep the entertainment fires burning and avoid death by boredom. Bravo! As you were

Wow- 3 months without an update here eh? Well the reality is that no news is good news on the car front. Things have been hectic with a house move and luckily the cars seem to have mostly behaved themselves! Golf SDi - Seems to be enjoying the longer commute after the move (As diesels do). An MOT pass with a single advisory for a CV boot in December so all good there Golf Gti - Again, all seems well. It's had a new cabin filter to aid with screen de-misting but aside from that nothing... Hopefully the intense re-commissioning after this came to us in March has been worthwhile. A clean MOT pass was achieved in November, so that's cool. V70 - Doing Volvo things as you'd expect. MANY tip runs and OMGMUCHFURNITUREMOVING. An odd knock from the front end is now apparent and the MOT is due in a fortnight's time- Investigation required

And the ALH that followed it has almost legendary status in terms of reliability and longevity too. These were around just before the PD stuff came in, and are arguably even tougher.

TBF I'm not sure I'd bother with a SH valve... Re the MK1 Golf valve, fitting would be much simpler if you were prepared to operate the temperature control by reaching under the dash, IE not cabling it up via the cabin control

I also mentioned this to the OP several posts upstream. It's true! I used a MK1 Golf valve, which sorted it in the end but did involve rejigging the whole cabling system to allow for the cabin controls to work. It wasn't a fun job at all, and being honest played a major hand in the decision to sell and move from the 700/900 platform to V70's... Volvo chopped and changed things seemingly willy nilly dependent on year/factory of production/what the weather was like that week. The consequent esoteric range of bits and poor parts availability really boiled my piss in the end.