My life as a 480 owner

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Ortovox77
480 Newbie
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2018 10:50 pm

My life as a 480 owner

Post by Ortovox77 » Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:06 am

So I thought I would post a summary of my Volvo 480 history and current 480 activities.

My first connection with the Volvo 480 was with my parents 1986 ES that they bought around 1994. This is the car I later learned to drive in and in 2000 I got hit by another car(low speed) in it so it was scrapped. During these years I learned that it was better that your learn/try to fix stuff on it yourself since the local Volvo dealers didn't have the knowledge anyway :) . Will try to find a picture if it's possible.


Then a year later in 2001 my father bought a 1990 Turbo (16000Km) that I was able to get my hands on. This became my first own car and I still have it today thought It is being scrapped for parts due to all the rust.
This is the car I have gotten most of my 480 knowledge from during all the years. When my father bought it I removed the interior and bumpers so I could treat it with rust protection everywere and fix the rust in the standard places. It got polished, I installed new sport suspension, some minor tuning and I built a 2.75" dual exhaust system etc.
This is how it looked then
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After many years as my daily car it didn't pass MOT in 2011, I didn't want to scrapp it so I keept it but with no garage it had a hard life :( , the engine still runs great even after all these years. https://www.facebook.com/gertsson/video ... 7800/?t=28

So a few years ago I finally moved to a house with a garage and the 480 interest started coming back to life and I started thinking about fixing my old 480 or buying a newer one. I decided on buying but it took nearly two years of searching before I found a 1994 Turbo in south of Sweden were I live.
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This was in 2016 when I just came home with it. It has run about 11000km and is rust free so my plans to do some tuning feelt wrong and I will just do some minor fixing and keep it in stock condition.

So of course I needed another 480 turbo to play with but that was hard to find. After looking for 2 more year I came across a 2.0L 1995 ES/GT this August for sale just 10min from my place. It was not in good condition, not much rust, it ran quite well but previous owners had made many bad fixes. Nothing in the dashboard worked as it should, no electric windows worked, generator did work I found out later, water in the floor, all panels were loose and vinyl was loose everywere and more but It had AC, leather seats and the not so common dark grey metalic paint and it was cheap so I bought it :) .
I started on with removing everything on the inside and cleaning everything, rust protected it were needed and fixed all the electronics. I took all that was good on my old 1990 Turbo for the interior, so now I think it look really nice inside except for the driver seat that need a repair. Other than that it need an engine service, rust fixing in rear wheel arches + new paint on the left front were a previous owner has made a mess. This will be work for the winter.
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After removing everything
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After fixing the interiour.
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And 2 weeks ago it happen again :) , I bought another Volvo 480 this time a 1988 Turbo. I was mainly interested since it had new rear lights that I wanted for my 1994 Turbo. But it is in good shape, engine does not run as smooth as it should, some rust in left rear but other than that rust free and complete with everything in nice condition. I will keep it as a project car that I will do some tuning on but the goal is to get it running well in stock condition first.
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Regards Jonas
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Volvo 480 Turbo 1994
Volvo 480 ES/GT 1995
Volvo 480 Turbo 1988
Volvo 480 Turbo 1990 (will be scrapped)
BMW Z4 coupe (ESS supercharged)
Saab 9-5 2006
Rotax DD2 Gokart
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johan900
480 Newbie
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:34 am

Re: My life as a 480 owner

Post by johan900 » Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:26 pm

I like that dual exhaust :D Is it custombuilt ?

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