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S80 safety S80

posted by  someone claiming to be M.P. on  Wed Apr 30 23:52 CST 2003 [RELATED]

Hi

I only want to post a comment concerning the safety of a Volvo, especially a S80 in that case.

My motoring area is Croatia and there people tend to drive somewhat "ridiculous".

Driving back from work three days ago I saw a horrible and hardly to believe crash that occured on the other side of the highway. Yesterday Iīve read in the newspaper what happened. A Ford Escort driver failed to drive off the highway on his exit. So that moron decided to make a U turn ON THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY and wanted to drive back to his exit. He was either drunk, absolutely stupid or anything else which cannot be realized by a reasonable person. In the moment the Ford driver was turning a Volvo S80 drove by and slammed directly into the left rear quarter of the Ford (the Volvo driver had no chance to escape from that tragedy). Resulting from the impact the Ford was thrown over the middle safety fence (without crushing it - he really flew over that thing!!!!)and ended up about 250-300 (!!!) ft. from the crash area on the other side of the highway. The driver survived ( severely injured ) and two of his passengers died as the result of flying out of the completely crushed Ford.

The Volvo made an emergency braking and stood still in his original driving lane some 150 ft. behind impact zone. The front (hood, fenders etc.) was totally smashed but the passenger cell including the windshield was completey intact. Even the doors could be opened without any force by the completely shocked driver and his passenger. The driver and his passenger suffered NO INJURIES!!!! The Volvo driver claimed, which was later on confirmed by the police investigation, that his speed at impact was about 90 mph - we have no speed limits in Croatia on the open highways! The Ford almost stood still when cras ocurred so the Volvo protected its passengers from a crash with 90 mph into a standing barrier of about 2.400 pounds!

You guys out there who are driving around in a S80 or any other Volvo could be proud of it driving one of the safest cars ever built.

Iīm driving around with a Volvo 245 and Iīm quite sure that I could count on it concerning safety and reliability. Any other car Iīm going to buy in my life would be a Volvo!

Lots of greetings and drive safely

Ciao

M.P.








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    ...the single safest car.... S80

    posted by  davidm on  Mon Jun 2 06:39 CST 2003
    Author: [PROFILE] [EVERY POST] [THREADS] [BEST POSTS] RSS Feed     [IGNORE ALL POSTS] [RELATED]

    No car is safe in every situation, but recently the S80 was rated as the all-around safest car (CR, I believe). Their conclusion: if you're buying a car for safety, buy an S80. If you want reliability....well, that's a different story.
    --


    David
    1998 S70 T5SE // misc mods (mostly lighting) // red calipers
    1992 940 GLE // Hella Micro DE foglights and 170K








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      ...the single safest car.... S80

      posted by  someone claiming to be M.P. on  Mon Jun 2 06:46 CST 2003 [RELATED]

      ...see my posting below :-)

      Ciao

      M.P.








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    S80 safety S80

    posted by  someone claiming to be John A on  Wed May 28 11:06 CST 2003 [RELATED]

    This is a good story and Volvo's do have good passive safety, and older models were pretty reliable. What the new Volvo's are lacking is reliability, which is a safety issue too. If it leaves you stranded on the road, quits going down the freeway for no reason, lights fail for unknown reason, leaks fuel, transmission goes with less than 5000 miles on the car, spends unordinate amount of time at the dealer with you commuting in a flimsy rental car,...you got a safety problem!








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      S80 safety S80

      posted by  someone claiming to be M.P. on  Mon Jun 2 06:18 CST 2003 [RELATED]

      ...thatīs why Iīm driving a 1989 Volvo 245 ;-)

      I completely agree with you that these were completely different (better) cars concerning reliability! Itīs sad to see how decade old issues are dying slowly troughout all manufacturers of passenger cars nowadays...

      Thatīs the reason why Iīm never thinkig about selling my car in order to buy something new...for what reason?! You have to pay very high sums for very low quality!

      Nontheless even today Volvo is one of the best manufacturers of motor cars!
      See the story about the crash Iīve posted. Perhaps one day theyīll come back to their reliability standards they had before "big F" bought them!

      Ciao & lots of greetings

      M.P.








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        S80 safety: 2000 S80 T6 S80

        posted by  someone claiming to be Rich on  Tue Jun 3 15:20 CST 2003 [RELATED]

        Although the S80 has the good features you talked about, they put in a hand-hold above and to the left of the driver that is very hard. A person that is not short has to remember to keep the seat low, to keep clearance from this in case he is jolted side-to-side. This is not hypothetical it will happen whenever the seat is high enough and the car goes over a RR track or onto a rough shoulder. Also, the side and rear visibility in an S80 is poor do to the thick posts and high seat backs in the back seat. After driving this car for a few years now I am sure that these are major safety hazards that I didn't have to put up with with my last vehicle (89 Mazda 626).








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          S80 safety: 2000 S80 T6 S80

          posted by  BS on  Tue Jun 17 04:59 CST 2003
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          Those high seat backs will prevent you or your passenger from serious neck injury in an acccident. Visibility does suffer, however, according to the big US National Institute for Highway Safety, only Volvo has adequate head rests.








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          S80 safety: 2000 S80 T6 S80

          posted by  someone claiming to be M.P. on  Wed Jun 4 09:04 CST 2003 [RELATED]

          Hi Rich,

          I perfectly agree with you. In the new generation of Volvoīs (nontheless in other makes too) youīre sitting too close to the upper windshield frame. I donīt know if this is quite a good idea but obviously they couldnīt engineer the cars in an other way, cause of the wind channel requiremnts...;-) Even the XC90 has this problem.

          Visibility to the rear is very poor in those cars, specially the S80/S60 suffer from that problem. Ok, the thick consoles must be due to better crashworthieness but nevertheless itīs a problem for the driver!

          My Volvo 245 has a perfect visibility to all corners and youīre sitting very far from the windshield and the handholds on the headliner, except that there is none on the driverīs side!!!! Ok, itīs wind channel results are those from a cupboard but you have not the risk of being punched into handholds or the windshield frame...!

          I absolutely didnīt want to make down other manufacturers with that posting about safety (mostly all manufacturers have very high safety standards nowadays), I only wanted to say, that the Volvo guys spend awfully lot of time with designing cars which are safe and in which you could trust in!!!!

          Have fun with your S80 .. lots of greetings

          Ciao

          M.P.







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