My lovely big Ovlov V70 D5
Discussion
Well, folks. All good things have to come to an end. A year into a long stay abroad and my lovely, lovely E36 M3 convertible, which I'd had for 4 years and spent thousands on getting pretty much perfect, was starting to moulder at my friend's farm. Due to me being away this sadly got sold for an absolute song to a complete d
head who then entangled me in a tax mess with DVLA due to being a bruvvy home trader. Bitter? Nah. But it's still untaxed and un-MOT'd. And still wearing the 2 mm tyres which I'd handsomely discounted in the sale price 
I came back and needed a car- For the first 5 months a friend's Honda CRV admirably filled this gap, a lease car that he needed looking after whilst abroad. A few hundred quid to help with the lease fees and I was happily tooling round in a 55mpg family bus.
Thoughts of a replacement loomed- What with having furnished a new house the new car fund was somewhat low. I'd decided on a V70 D5 after driving one at speed on a work driving assessment. What a fantastic engine, and bags of room. I was sold.
A month ago, I started looking quite a way ahead of time and, as is always the way, found something pretty quick, a 54 reg sport absolutely miles away in Essex. Looked good. Nearly placed a deposit on it. But then I saw a much, much more local SE-spec one. Only 25 miles away, and a few hundred quid cheaper. But with a landline number that just rang...and rang...and rang.
On the verge of giving up hope, I was about to tee up a viewing of the Essex one and received an e-mail back from the one near to me. Hallelujah! Reasoning that, whatever happened I'd save £100+ on travel, I went to see it. Cash in hand, naturlich.
And there it was. Lovely house in the country, 4th car in the family now surplus to requirements, full service history and very clean and tidy. Auto, but you can't have everything. Starship mileage at 229k but hey, if it's still going it must be good, right... Quick test drive around the lanes confirmed it drove, stopped and worked nicely.
After some very light haggling from £1350 due to the 2-month MOT, I drove away in this utter beauty. Twelve hundred quid. £1200. Absolutely bonkers VFM.
Pictured after a clean today...
Nice arse
Almost every option, heated unmarked cow, electric heated memory seats, fantastic Dolby Prologic stereo...
It really is far, far better than I had any right to expect for such a small outlay. I'd have preferred the manual, and the auto does both sap a bit of the power and also bump it up 2 tax bands but it does actually suit the wafty nature of the car and as long as you keep it on the boil doesn't harm the acceleration/overtaking too much.
I'm trying extremely hard to remember that this is a 229k car which doesn't owe me much, and not throwing money at it. I'm a bugger for spending cash on cars I love. I already love this car.
The cloudy headlights have polished up quite nicely with a bit of toothpaste, I need to replace one fog lamp at the front (a job I may or may not tackle) and the rear wiper doesn't work. That's pretty much it.
Current outlay on garage bills stands at £82.50 for front alignment (drove like a crab, now much less so) and their labour to diagnose a failed handbrake. A further £61 got me a set of rear pads and discs, fitted on a mate's driveway, and I now have a handbrake.
Hurrah!
There are a few niggles which I might get to at some point. Front tyres are stty Linglongs, scrubbed on the outside edge by the alignment, and there's a bit of a PAS fluid leak, as well as a minor oil leak from somewhere. As it stands I can live with topping it up and scrubbing the driveway...
head who then entangled me in a tax mess with DVLA due to being a bruvvy home trader. Bitter? Nah. But it's still untaxed and un-MOT'd. And still wearing the 2 mm tyres which I'd handsomely discounted in the sale price I came back and needed a car- For the first 5 months a friend's Honda CRV admirably filled this gap, a lease car that he needed looking after whilst abroad. A few hundred quid to help with the lease fees and I was happily tooling round in a 55mpg family bus.
Thoughts of a replacement loomed- What with having furnished a new house the new car fund was somewhat low. I'd decided on a V70 D5 after driving one at speed on a work driving assessment. What a fantastic engine, and bags of room. I was sold.
A month ago, I started looking quite a way ahead of time and, as is always the way, found something pretty quick, a 54 reg sport absolutely miles away in Essex. Looked good. Nearly placed a deposit on it. But then I saw a much, much more local SE-spec one. Only 25 miles away, and a few hundred quid cheaper. But with a landline number that just rang...and rang...and rang.
On the verge of giving up hope, I was about to tee up a viewing of the Essex one and received an e-mail back from the one near to me. Hallelujah! Reasoning that, whatever happened I'd save £100+ on travel, I went to see it. Cash in hand, naturlich.
And there it was. Lovely house in the country, 4th car in the family now surplus to requirements, full service history and very clean and tidy. Auto, but you can't have everything. Starship mileage at 229k but hey, if it's still going it must be good, right... Quick test drive around the lanes confirmed it drove, stopped and worked nicely.
After some very light haggling from £1350 due to the 2-month MOT, I drove away in this utter beauty. Twelve hundred quid. £1200. Absolutely bonkers VFM.
Pictured after a clean today...
Nice arse
Almost every option, heated unmarked cow, electric heated memory seats, fantastic Dolby Prologic stereo...
It really is far, far better than I had any right to expect for such a small outlay. I'd have preferred the manual, and the auto does both sap a bit of the power and also bump it up 2 tax bands but it does actually suit the wafty nature of the car and as long as you keep it on the boil doesn't harm the acceleration/overtaking too much.
I'm trying extremely hard to remember that this is a 229k car which doesn't owe me much, and not throwing money at it. I'm a bugger for spending cash on cars I love. I already love this car.
The cloudy headlights have polished up quite nicely with a bit of toothpaste, I need to replace one fog lamp at the front (a job I may or may not tackle) and the rear wiper doesn't work. That's pretty much it.
Current outlay on garage bills stands at £82.50 for front alignment (drove like a crab, now much less so) and their labour to diagnose a failed handbrake. A further £61 got me a set of rear pads and discs, fitted on a mate's driveway, and I now have a handbrake.
Hurrah!
There are a few niggles which I might get to at some point. Front tyres are s
tty Linglongs, scrubbed on the outside edge by the alignment, and there's a bit of a PAS fluid leak, as well as a minor oil leak from somewhere. As it stands I can live with topping it up and scrubbing the driveway...Yeah, it really is excellent. I'm aiming for this to be my daily load lugger and for something small impractical and fun to be tucked in the garage once my property sale goes through, neighbour has got a Westfield which has given me dangerous ideas!
Oil is nothing more than a weep, garage man reckoned probably rocker cover gasket or oil pressure switch gasket. I'll keep an eye on it, ditto with the slight loss of PAS fluid. I need to be careful not to go into investigative overdrive with this one!
May well swap out foglights if I find some decent second hand ones, and also looking for front tyres since I think this may also help the handling a bit.
MOT soon, fingers crossed. Now I've sorted the handbrake though I can't see anything obvious...yet
Total outlay to date: £1340
Oil is nothing more than a weep, garage man reckoned probably rocker cover gasket or oil pressure switch gasket. I'll keep an eye on it, ditto with the slight loss of PAS fluid. I need to be careful not to go into investigative overdrive with this one!
May well swap out foglights if I find some decent second hand ones, and also looking for front tyres since I think this may also help the handling a bit.
MOT soon, fingers crossed. Now I've sorted the handbrake though I can't see anything obvious...yet
Total outlay to date: £1340
PS. Calculated MPG on the last fillup was 29mpg, spot on what the OBC quoted. Actually given the fact I've done basically no decent journeys and most of the time have been hammering around town/1 mile to work it's pretty good!
ETA... car actually has a fully stamped service book up until last June, pretty amazing at this mileage!
ETA... car actually has a fully stamped service book up until last June, pretty amazing at this mileage!
Edited by carreauchompeur on Wednesday 24th May 09:51
Well, I'm still very impressed with this car.
Total spend now approx. £1450.
I had a garage diagnose a failed handbrake and do the alignment- £85
Rear discs and pads which I fitted- £61
Oil and filter change at National: £49
MoT, which it sailed through: £50
So all good to go for another year and 230,000 mile FSH maintained! Such an impressive load lugger and super comfortable to waft around in. Also getting about 35mpg on average which I'm happy with.
Only thing is, it handles like a bit of a wardrobe. Do they 'all do that sir' or do I need to start shelling out for some new struts?
Total spend now approx. £1450.
I had a garage diagnose a failed handbrake and do the alignment- £85
Rear discs and pads which I fitted- £61
Oil and filter change at National: £49
MoT, which it sailed through: £50
So all good to go for another year and 230,000 mile FSH maintained! Such an impressive load lugger and super comfortable to waft around in. Also getting about 35mpg on average which I'm happy with.
Only thing is, it handles like a bit of a wardrobe. Do they 'all do that sir' or do I need to start shelling out for some new struts?
Well, another month on and I've got a bit enthusiastic with spending but am still less than £1700.
New set of Uniroyal Rainsports have competely changed the handling, the difference from the 4 year old ditchfinders is night and day. Aircon regas has made life so much more civilised. And a set of bargain £10 mats from Amazon that fit...perfectly.
I really do love this car. Prancing moose decals en route
New set of Uniroyal Rainsports have competely changed the handling, the difference from the 4 year old ditchfinders is night and day. Aircon regas has made life so much more civilised. And a set of bargain £10 mats from Amazon that fit...perfectly.
I really do love this car. Prancing moose decals en route
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