Volvo Lifetime Care Scheme Owner Needed!!

[petefarrell360]

Right, I've spoken briefly about this with Chris_C, Foggy, Steve and Dave. Chris brought it to my attention that the Lifetime Care Volvo offered as a selling point for a new Volvo at one point was transferable to another owner. I thought it would be once the car was sold, the new owner didn't pay the money for it, thus not having an original sales receipt in their name, so not being able to use the Lifetime Care Scheme. This is not the case.....

The reason we are interested in finding a Volvo 300 with an up to date and valid Volvo Lifetime Care is due to the problems brought about since Ford bought Volvo. As they don't expect their cars to last 10 years, they've decided to do the same with Volvo, and delete parts and stock which don't appear to be moving. Of course this means items that only need replacement after ten years or so fall smack bang in this category, i.e. shock absorbers, window weather strips, rubber bushes etc. So when they've looked at the system, and decided to delete a part, it is now becoming a problem for us, as a lot of 300 owners who do care for and look after their car actually need these parts, as the time has now taken it's toll on that part and it needs replacement.

The route I believe we can take is one of how we bought into the Volvo brand on the basis that the car was built to last, something of which Volvo has always been very proud, stating that the average life expectancy of a Volvo in 1982 was 20.7 years, when the average was 16.2 of all manufacturers. They were also proud of being able to supply parts for the 120 (Amazon) series even when the car had long since ceased production. After buying into this product built to last etc, we now cannot buy genuine parts for the cars to continue keeping them maintained and in use. A failure on their part.

One of the terms of the Volvo Lifetime Care is that only genuine Volvo parts are used......... but how can this continue if they are not available, thus making their own Lifetime Care Void and useless through no fault of the owner.

The problem is that finding an owner who has kept their Volvo Lifetime Care up to date in every way is like finding the proverbial Hen's Teeth, Rocking Horse Droppings and Needle in a Haystack and selecting the winning Lotto numbers all in one go......... pretty much an impossible mission. But, if we can it would be a HUGE step in putting some pressure on Volvo. If you can present a car that needs a part no longer produced, but needs it to keep the Lifetime Care valid, Volvo must surely supply a genuine part somehow, or make special exception, find an aftermarket part to use and then allow the Lifetime Care to continue on this car, despite not using genuine parts. If they manage to find a genuine part, after members of the public have been told they no longer exist, the demand can be made for more to be found, more to be produced, or, that we can have the information on who produces the part, to approach them ourselves to save the mould, drawings and useful information etc, as Foggy said quite rightly recently, once original items like this are gone, they are gone forever.

I think I read on the Volvo Owners Club Forum about a chap with a 700 who has kept his half of the Lifetime Care agreement, even at 250,000 miles or so, but Volvo are not going to be able to supply genuine parts to service his car soon......... so what then? I hope he gets something done and really makes full use of having paid Volvo for every service over the years and by buying genuine parts and gets his moneys worth.

So, back to the plea....... basically, you should have a Lifetime Care card with the car reg etc on it, registered to you, and here's the big one, and have had your car serviced every 6000 miles, or every 6 months, which ever is sooner, at a Volvo garage, using only genuine Volvo parts.

I can't imagine many people kept going back to Volvo up to this day every 6 months. My GLT appears to have slipped up by 1994, despite being serviced at a Volvo garage, they left it too long between services.......once, so Lifetime Care gone.......

There may be a saving grace on this is, as recently there was some law passed that when people bought a new car, they didn't have to go back to a garage of the marque they bought the car from for, this was to protect the buyer from price fixing and being mugged blind for servicing in order to keep a warranty valid. It may be possible to argue that the terms and condtions of the original Lifetime Care are in breach of this, and that as long as Genuine Volvo parts have been used and a competent and trained individual has serviced the car at regular intervals the Lifetime Care is still valid, a long shot I know.

If you look into the Volvo Lifetime Care scheme, they're winners either way, if their looking after a car for so long under the scheme, the owners are paying them for their servicing and genuine parts (not cheap!), so replacing the odd thing here and there FOC or at a reduced rate isn't going to hurt too much, epecially if the car is actually well maintained when serviced by them paid for by the owner, it shouldn't go wrong. And then, somewhere along the line, the car may get sold and/or the owner doesn't keep the servicing up to date, Volvo win, they've had their money from the previous owner, now it isn't their problem!

They've used a very clever marketing scheme to convince people to buy their product. Well, offer it and it needs to be fullfilled to the end!

It seems from my brief research that the scheme came about in 1987, so any car after then should be fine, up until when it was offered, I'm not entirely sure, it was still about in 1989 I think.

I was planning to work on the basis that my Variomatic hadn't actually reached the mileage of it's second service, but they'd covered that with the every 6 months clause.

I've been extremely lucky in finding two BNIB clutches for the CVT Variomatic system some of the 300's operate on through Ebay recently to recommission two cars. If these hadn't been found, both cars would probably be scrapped by now sadly, with no other faults or problems, just because of a lack of parts. These are not something you can resort to buying from Hellfrauds, or your local motor factor when Volvo decide to delete them, or make do with a close fit product to keep it working. These are precision made, model specific parts that you're not going to find easily elsewhere.

So, apologies for the super long rant/post/plea but lets see if we can make them cough up and sort this ridiculous problem with the supply of genuine parts. I know they want us to give up, scrap the 300's and buy a new Volvo, I mean Ford, but I'm not going to bow to pressure.

Foggy, can you put out some feelers as Registered Keeper, and maybe ask for any 300 owners reading the VOC mag who have kept the Lifetime Care up to date to step up and help the cause?

Cheers,

Pete

[Chris_C]

Pete, Mo has a car that either is the closest we've come, or only just out, which can be claimed due to parts maybe?

The problem comes is mostly, without a judgement, laws cannot be backdated, so the taking it to a random ever 6months would be very tenuous, and even then it is fair to insist that the random garage used only volvo parts.

The other problem is the lifetime care took into account of the "wear and tear" of the orig item, a point I found out from Clun (Clan? maybe even) on the VOC. Basically they paid you a sliding scale , so if your caliper was ten years, they'd pay for a new caliper - 10*(year degredation) or basically a token fiver to cover your petrol on the way to the garage.

Still, more than worth a go, if nothing else stopping them before the tooling gets thrown away would be a hoooge step.

[340cbr]

To be honest, I have not read everything cause I do not have time to do it but, simple question....

Was that given to all buyers at that time in all countries?

I ask this cause I know someone who have bought is 300 new and keeps it. I believe that all the maintenance in the car was / will be / is made at Volvo.



About the parts that are becoming to get hard to buy in Volvo, people with 400's are now becoming to get it as well, so.... more people making noise, wich is good

[trabitom99]

I'm glad you're getting into this, Pete. Maybe it'd also be an idea to get some of the other European v300 communities in on the act? v3c in Holland and v300power spring to mind ... Maybe that'd get a bit more clout with Volvo / Ford.

Tom

[germ]

its a real shame, my redline too had full volvo service history to 2005 i think, then it went to france and was necglected some what.(didnt get volvo services any more.) iam the 3rd owner of the redline first was an old guy then his son then me.

Would be very nice to beable to get parts again. and i never remember giving ford MY consent to taking volvo over/deleting parts.



Cheers
will

[petefarrell360]

Tom, good points indeed, getting the other communities on board would help, I think I said something similar to Foggy in the thread about him becoming Registered Keeper. A big mob of angry owners is better than one or two whinging people.

As 340cbr said though, was it availble in all countries, or was it something Volvo UK offered? It wasn't a buy in option, it was something that came in the deal after 1987 in the UK. Tom, I know you've got a lot of brochures etc, and a lot fo them are from other countries, any chance of getting some info for us please mate if you get a min? Just to compare the deal, as you never know, it may not be the same in all countries.

Yeah, I read about the wear and tear and driving styles and all the other areas Volvo covered originally, such as failing to take the advice of the Volvo dealer if they suggest changing something as it may look slightly suspect, if it's ignored, they won't help in the future, which is fair enough in many ways. Consumable parts like brakepads are down to how the car is driven, but it they went wrong stupidly soon, then Volvo would cough up. One of their examples is a clutch can be ruined in 6 minutes, or last 60,000 miles.....or something like that. So it comes down to the discretion of Volvo and looking after the car on the owners part.

Either way, presenting a car with a valid Lifetime Care should mean they might have to think twice about deleting parts. Especially as to 'look after the car' and to 'replace a part within good time to prevent future damage' we could go to town on which parts are needed, i.e. diff end plate looks scabby, well if that rusts through the diff would be ruined without oil, and is a potential danger......... now come on Volvo, sort it out!

As Chris says, just saving the tooling, moulds etc would be a massive start.

Pete

[SteveP]

Interesting points... Not sure how far we'd get with it but it's potentially worth a go.

Not sure about 87 being the year.... my 343 has lifetime care stickers on it... but it was due a service in 2001 Granted... it hasn't really moved much since then...

[trabitom99]

As 340cbr said though, was it availble in all countries, or was it something Volvo UK offered? It wasn't a buy in option, it was something that came in the deal after 1987 in the UK. Tom, I know you've got a lot of brochures etc, and a lot fo them are from other countries, any chance of getting some info for us please mate if you get a min? Just to compare the deal, as you never know, it may not be the same in all countries.

Pete, it may be something only Volvo UK offered. From memory, the German brochures featured a kind of "roadside assistance" blurb - they weren't quite onto the "Volvo for Life" thing then. I'll check when I get back home ...

Tom