The purpose of this site was initially just to put up some information which gets asked repeatedly on the Volvo Brickboard forum. I found myself typing out the same stories a number of times for people, and thought that it would be better archived somewhere... so Ozbrick was born. It's kind of a personal archive of the knowledge that I am accumulating on my car since it was purchased. My hard disks are so cluttered that the OzBrick website will keep me organised, and I get to share the information at the same time.

This can be your site too if you want to contribute. A few generous people have contributed, and consequently this site belongs to them as well. If you are not interested in building a site for yourself but have something to share that may help Volvo owners, then I hope that you will consider making a part of OzBrick your own by contributing. If not, I nevertheless hope that the information on these pages serves you well, and thank you for visiting. Contributors have forwarded some excellent information on the maintenance of this car, and it has proven well worth my time to construct this website just to receive this information that I would otherwise not have seen. Karma works!

Due to the unexpected traffic at this site and the positive feedback from visitors, I am continuing to build upon OzBrick and, hopefully, I am slowly making it into something more than the "quick-n-nasty" effort that began. Nevertheless, the style remains fixed at a "mid 90s" website look, and that way retains compatibility with many older browsers. I have considered style sheet or frame layouts for the site, but that can wait until I get the thing properly hosted and running Linux add-ons; in the meantime we have to settle with Yahoo's limitations.

Thanks to those who continue to get back to me with feedback, via both brickboard and direct email:
a (pretty lame yahoo) guestbook has been added for the same purpose - please sign it if you have the time.

Thanks also to Chris, an auto tech who checks site content.

My name is Michael, and I am from Sydney, Australia.
 

The car is an almost basic 850: 1995 Model year normally aspirated 10 valve with leather inside, and as you can see, burgundy metallic paint, spoiler and Volvo alloys. Shod with Michelin MXV3A "Greens". Why? This car is in absolutely mint condition and has - as of November 2004- only about 90000 kilometres on it.

(February 2001) I just took the car for a haul up to Byron Bay, which is 770 kms north of Sydney on the far north coast of New South Wales. It cruised all the way without any problems and achieved 12.5 kilometres/litre (29 mpg, I think) on the highway. total distance of trip 1800 kms, 7/8 highway travel. Attains 8-9.5 km/l in the severe start-stop traffic known as Sydney. Another trip, early March, has given a solid 30 mpg highway cycle on anything from 91-98 octane.

I didn't drive it excessively fast on the Byron trip due to very harsh penalties for speeding in Australia (40kms over and you surrender the licence ).

Driving it at up to 140 km/hr is so quiet it is deceptive. It's every bit as good as the last comparable car that I drove, a BMW 525i. Probably better.

There is plenty of power out of this base model engine for overtaking, and enough to annoy the hell out of cars on the highway with 3 litre + V6s. That's good enough for me.

I like the superior safety (see crash & safety sections) of these cars, the relative reliability, the build quality (shut the door - doesn't that sound better than late model Mercedes?), the cost of some replacement parts is still acceptable, and depending on the problem there is often a simplicity (for fixing) compared to some of the other European vehicle manufacturers, and even some Asian and/or local models. The opening line on the front page of the site about 'transnational influences' is very relevant here.

So with clear conscience and no personal affiliation asides owning one of their cars, I can recommend Volvo to everyone.
 
 

"before the respray" The wife here demonstrates the "aggressive approach" to  parking space acquisition at the local shopping mall