I've been asking myself the same thing many times about my T4.
I got it in 2012 with 129k on the clock, it was very tidy, had full service history (Volvo specialist) and it drove very well, had xenons and heated seats too which were a bonus for me.
Two weeks later as my Uncle works for Volvo and I trust the garage, I let them do a free health check on it and to my surprise there was around £1200 worth of work that needed doing (too much to list). This bill includes parts at cost price + a few % and labour at half what it usually is, so I got it all done. At the time I was 21, just graduated and didn't have a huge amount saved so this stung quite a lot.
I now have over 2 folders full of Volvo invoices. I calculated last month that I've spent roughly £5,600 on her in the last 3 years
NOT including the mods I've done to it. It's needed new MAF, MAP sensors, throttle body, suspension bushes, drop links, headlights, ballasts - Last year the turbo went at 160,000 and a cost of £1200 for a new gen Volvo TD04 unit, the exhaust then got multiple holes in it within about 2 weeks, upgraded that to a JT tuning system and then after that I got rear ended on the M27 by a tw*t on his phone - Fortunately it was just the bumper, no structural damage. The CEM then went faulty, the auto leveling xenon sensor went faulty, aerial stopped working, broken rear spring, all repaired or upgraded now and the list goes on believe me...
The point is the car is bloody fantastic to drive and body wise there's barely a mark on it. I've probably spent about £700 on mods including the lowering, exhaust and the remap, the rest unfortunately is just keeping it on the road. My dad had a T4 that did 205k without so much as a hickup, it was faultless. Mine is not! It's never been reliable and always has an issue every other week.
I've looked several times at swapping it for something, I've test driven focus ST's, Astra VXR's and a T5 and prefer the T4 over all of them hands down.
I'm now back at the point where I need to make another decision. I thought I was finally at the stage were I can quite literally say "It'll be fine, there's not much left to go wrong on it now that hasn't been replaced!" then my Uncle called me on my birthday after a service to tell me I have hydrocarbons in the expansion tank - Either early signs of a head gasket failure or a have an internal crack in the block somewhere. I have no coolant or oil loss at all but the pressure and reading is getting higher every couple of weeks. The engines on borrowed time.
I always liked the idea at some stage of fully forging it. So, do I hand it over to Tim Williams and fully forge it, complete engine rebuild, as new, for a few thousand, or do I throw in the towel and replace it?
Pictures of above mentioned money whore...
