Cord Fourteener

Family camping trip achieved, home now. Ideal car, especially when Mrs buys the most ridiculous family tent off Facecrack. Car behaved impeccably. Shame about the leaky tent though.

I've been at a very small family festival in mid Wales, and the automotive shite had a much stronger representation than out in the wild. Some highlights:

Are you saying 337k miles is high mileage or summat?

It turns out that if you don't fasten the seatbelts when folding the rear seats in a V70 then the seatbelts reverse lock. Fix: unbolt the seatbelt. Bit of a faff but not a serious wpsi. Then remember this always.

That's official. Correctly done.

I learned something about the folding seats. Always have the seatbelts done up when folding. The way they enable the cavernous cargo load is by putting the seatbelt reel in the seat tops so sometimes they lock too short to return the seat backs to upright. Fix: unbolt the bottom of the seatbelt.

I find i have to really concentrate on giving the lightest touch and they will flash with lights on but I blinded a few folk while learning this! The 740 has a more normal set up. I find with all my Swedish designed cars i leave the lights on all the time and when the ignition is off they all go out.

Volvo V70 2002 (phase 2)

To me at least it doesn't look 20 years old and it doesn't feel 337k miles

Yeah that's odd.

Day 4 of V70 ownership. Everything appears to work well despite its 337,000 miles and I'm getting better mpgs than the book says I should (and I live in hilly windy-road country) and I'm getting 48-52 mpg depending on the journey. I expect as I do more work towing the trailer on short hops and as the temp gets lower that will reduce the efficiency but I'm over the moon so far.

But the glovebox was clean... perhaps?

Again, barrel scraping, the full lock either way sounds a bit weird and the single rear seat back unlock button is proving awkward, but it does work. Still, very impressive car. Now I've filled the boot with essential crap for a gig and there's plenty of room to spare. Big strong 5-pot diesel says load? What load? Easy peasy.

Still in the first week of V70 ownership and I'm loving it. So far I can find nothing that doesn't work. It has a few rumbles at idle, especially when foot is on brake but given its nearly 337,000 miles I'm not moaning, I'm scraping the barrel to find faults. I've known cars with a third of the miles that sound goosed and nothing works properly. It really is a credit to its previous owners.

Interesting, that. My local Subaru place is a small brick unit with not a WRX or STI in sight. At least, not the car anyway.