[-bobda-]

Originally Posted by peteS40

Well, your options 2 & 3 mean you keep the car so maybe the first thing to decide is:
a) Sell car?
b) Or keep it and try and minimise the repair cost?

"Minimise the repair cost" could mean minimise it to £0 and would involve either the (IMO dodgy) warranty method, or to claim the money back from someone else, or even as I was getting at to use cheaper recon or used parts and a non-volvo dealer to get the costs down.

Yep, minimising it to £0 would be perfect! On suggesting to the dealer the warranty route, I received a positive response.

So, do you really want to sell the car? Your sig says it is 'tweaked' and I presume that was by yourself which means you'd have to do all that again to any new car. I'm interested in how come your car has gone up 1k in value as you don't normally get that back when you modify a car, but even if it has what if you bought another similar car, could you get another for this money, what if that ended up having expensive faults?

It's gone up £1k in value from the day I bought it when Parkers was saying £7100 to today where Parkers is saying £8005. Odd I know, but I must just be lucky in that respect!

I've had it custom remapped, put in a BMC panel filter and added some smoked side markers to match the indicators and side repeaters, nothing major, but the remap made a big difference.
This isn't what has put it up by value, but I would think the remap would make it slightly more desirable to a buyer over a similar model.

My personal feelings are that getting rid of a potentially good car because it needs a bit of work doing is never a good reason, especially if you believe that when that work is done then the car will be ok. Rightly or wrongly I still think if I can sort out the things on my S40 then it will be ok, and "my way" has always been to keep plugging away and fixing cars rather than just get them shifted. This is because:
(a) If you buy another similar car just because of the problem with your one, and it goes wrong, you'll think "oh no, if only I'd kept the old volvo I bet it wouldve't been perfect once I'd sorted that egr + turbo"
(b) If you get rid of your car, you'll basically be throwing away all the work you have done and the things you have modified.

Of course, as any decent psychiatrist will tell you, you should never look back and think "what if" but just look to the future. But human beings don't seem to be programmed to do that!

I know and I'm not one to chuck out cars on a whim! I've only had this car and a little Alfa (which was my first car) and this is the first major non-fault issue I've had with any car, including ones which have been in the family.

Maybe that's what is erring me towards selling, coupled with the increased value.

How long have you had the car? If you've not had it very long at all and haven't really done anything too much to it then it might be easier to get it shifted.

I got it in January, which is why I believe I am entitled to some recompense from the trader who I bought it off.

There was evidence of something amiss at purchase (dirty oil, even though it was only changed 6000 miles previous).

Anyway, if you do decide to keep the car then one good thing is it sounds like you can take your time over these faults. That might mean trying to fight a court case etc. to claim off the seller, or it might just mean saving up money and searching for cheap parts. By the sounds of your quote, Mr. dealer is charging you £90 per hour for labour which is fair enough from a dealer but you could get it down to £35 per hour from an independant place. Re. the EGR valve, whilst not knowing too much about diesels I cannot believe it is too much of a job I think you probably just have to remove starter motor for access and drain some coolant. For my car the haynes book says it is only "2/5 spanners" which is the "easy" rating for "inexperienced" mechanics, and one presumes the dealers are rated at "5/5"! Perhaps the part itself is very expensive but again maybe you could go used on this.

The cost for the EGR valve to be replaced by Volvo and for them to cover 50% of the cost is a £570 job. This is because it includes a number of parts, some kind of fuel valve as well and a number of software upgrades. If I don't go this route, then I won't get the 50%.

This is where the warranty would come in again...

Re. the warranty, even if this works you have still paid £300 for it. That's equivalent to paying for the EGR + turbo work to be done for £300. I personally doubt that anything else will go wrong during the next 12 months which you could claim under warranty, and the warranty suppliers will doubt this too which is how they calculate the £300 insurance premium. I still think you won't get away with it on warranty, but again this is only my opinion. But what if you don't get away with it? - then you've paid your £300 for nothing. By the way, a lot of warranties do NOT cover the turbocharger.

I very much doubt I could get the EGR valve and turbo done for £300. If I could, I'd be on it like a shot.

I've specified the turbo on the warranty I have quoted for and it's covered.

Now, this is just my opinion and I am not you and I don't know your full situation, but what I would do is:
a) Keep the car
b) Find the cheapest parts and labour (within reason that is still acceptable) and get the work done fairly soon
c) Separately pursue a case against the seller with regard to refund for the cost of the work

The reason I would not delay the work until potentially winning the cost is because it would really bug me that these faults persisted, and I would just want to get them sorted. Also it may affect e.g fuel economy during this time and certainly the enjoyment of the car. Your case against the seller may go on for ages. Anyway, provided you keep all receipts etc. I cannot see a problem with getting the seller to pay for the work at a later date. The only thing here is that the seller may be more willing to do the work themselves rather than pay you - which they can't if the work has already been done! But then again, it sounds like you aren't exactly bestist buddies with the company you bought the car off so you may not exactly want them to come near your car and touch it with a bargepole let alone do work on it! They'd probably just goof up the work anyway.

I imagine that they would want to see it first and perhaps appoint their own inspector to verify the fault. That's if they DO agree some kind of recompense at all.

Of course, all this relies on you keeping the car which I would do. Once you make that decision and get the work done you can get back to liking it again. But I guarantee - if you decide to sell it and you want rid merely due to the fact it has a fault, then you will loath that car and end up driving it badly until the day it finally goes. That's no fun, and unless you end up buying a mechnically-perfect car to replace it (and no-one can be sure nothing will ever go wrong with a car) then you'll probably always look back with rose tinted specs on and wish you hadn't sold it!

Let us know what you decide anyway, hope this has been of some help.

Pete

Many thanks for the words of advice, Pete.

Food for thought indeed.