Car recommendations please

When I lived in the South Island, all the farm kids I went to varsity with got dropped off at the Halls by farmer Mum & farmer Dad in a Subaru Outback - basically a Legacy station wagon (non-turbo) with extra ground clearance.

I assume from the fact that most of the farmers drive these, that they must be pretty good wagons for driving in to town from the boondocks.

I am sure they are every bit as complex as an X70, being a similar type of car, but you see Subarus everywhere on our roads so if someone in the family is worried about support for a Volvo, one of these might sit better!

[Edit: no idea if middle rear belt is 3-point on these. But I would be surprised if it wasn't, as even the more basic jappas offer this now!]

Support/parts for the Volvo is not a problem. There is really nothing that can't be couriered to you overnight.

Any decent general mechanic will have no problem what so ever servicing/repairing and sourcing parts.

The only drawback with the Volvo is that parts are a little dearer than some other cars as what we don't have in NZ is a lot of 3rd party competition like you do with VW etc.

I was wondering about the Subaru idea as well myself actually. Not necessarily a bad way to go. However for reliability and ease of servicing I would take the Volvo every time.

I say this having a very similar Volvo in the family that I service/repair myself. I have been there and done that and know what I am on about.

Also the idea of the Subaru somehow being more simple and easier to deal with. Not the case, the Subaru 4WD system is quite complicated and major servicing of the engine more difficult than the Volvo. The Volvo 5 Cylender engine in question has been around for decades and just updated and improved with time. Its a dead simple and easy to deal with system and nice and straight-foward to work on. Subaru's Boxer engines are quite fiddly by comparison, and while if you service/maintain a Subaru engine they are generally O.K they are still no where near as bomb proof as the good old Volvo 5 Cylinder. We have Subaru's in the family as well, so again this is first hand.

Major service is also not going to be cheaper, sure the Volvo is dearer to deal with than a VW for items like timing belts etc but we are talking about spending maybe another $100 a year on average for total maintenance over the course of ownership. Its nothing in the scheme of things.

The other thing, is being rural why not just order your Volvo parts for absolute nicks online direct from the states anyway! Any planned servicing can be dealt with this way making your parts as cheap as any similarly sophisticated car and everything is delivered to your door in about a week. Its easy (even for first timers who are not Volvo afficianado's).

Thats what I do with anything planned, and anything urgent I just order overnight from a NZ supplier. Its a piece of cake.

Its all about thinking things through properly and keeping things in context. The days of sailing ships, muskets and the pony express are over. With overnight couriers, telephone and internet living Rural is little different to living in Auckland city with regard to sourcing parts/maintenance on a car like that.

Just one last point. To give you an idea of why Volvo parts are so well supported (even though there are not a lot of importers) and one of the many reasons that 5 Cylender engine is such a cracker. A timing belt kit for a XC70 will also fit practically the entire Volvo range with that engine for about a decade, we are talking S60, V70, XC70, S80, XC90, S40 using the same timing belt kit if fitted with that same and most popular 5 Cylinder engine.

Same goes for oil filters etc. You can even just grab these common items from BNT, Repco etc if you need to just like you would any Toyota product etc. Personally I prefer to order genuine Volvo from a Volvo specialist but its not necessary if you don't want to.

Its interesting how people think there is some kind of strange foreign obscure technology a country mechanic won't recognize under the hood of the Volvo. The truth is quite the opposite, they are actually about as simple and straightforward as you get nowadays.

Our current car is black - well it is if I wash it, its more like a permanent shade brown