You’re right about Ford needing Volvo more than vice-versa. The original sale was a matter of Volvo having an excellent reputation in trucks, construction equipment, marine engines, etc., and the car division facing ever higher developing costs to keep up with emission and safety technlogy. Swedish labor costs are also very high. Worldwide car manufacturing became more & more concentrated.
Volvo’s possible course of action could have been to partner developnment with other smaller car companies on major technology issues. They did that in the V6 engine design with Renault, and Peugeot. In safety Volvo had always been a leader. At one time, Volvo and SAAB were supposed to merge; a natural, but it fell through. Both make cars and trucks, and are Swedish.
The sale to Ford is like a dysfunctional family adopting a bright child with financial needs to develop its talents. The nurturing aspect and empathy was somewhat absent. Similarly, ham-handed GM has had some difficulty assimilating SAAB. There does seem to be some synergism between Saturn and SAAB, of all things.
I worked for a Swedish company for a number of years and the national, cultural and corportate thinking is so much different than that of North American firms.
I fully understand the fiasco of the Daimler-Crysler “merger”.
The Dodge Neon is a prime example of why I say the brand matters far less than the car. 
Not all Dodges are terrible, but the Neon…
We also had a Sentra - newer than yours and it was dumped after too many mechanical problems. I’ve seen my neighbor haul off their well-maintained Camry to the junkyard a few years ago while my older Taurus kept on just fine.
It seems that since the mid-90s, really, with the exception of a few mistakes (Neon, Windstar, etc) the reliability has improved quite dramatically.
I’d certainly give you one thing, though - my 11 year old Taurus has more rattles in panels than my 10 year old Camry. But then the Camry’s engine isn’t nearly as smooth, so it kind of makes up some of the difference. Neither drives well over the lunar landscape that they call roads around here.
“The sale to Ford is like a dysfunctional family adopting a bright child with financial needs to develop its talents. The nurturing aspect and empathy was somewhat absent. Similarly, ham-handed GM has had some difficulty assimilating SAAB. There does seem to be some synergism between Saturn and SAAB, of all things.”
Well said, it will be very interesting to see what happens down the road.
An interesting tidbit along the same lines that I’d read:
Honda owners, on average, clean their garages far more frequently and regularly than the average Chrysler owner.
I must confess I don’t clean mine enough, but I could easily see how frequent cleaning could help find things like oil leaks earlier. I know my folks didn’t do nearly as much regular maintenance (who ever heard of brake fluid and transmission fluid changes?) until they bought their first Toyota, and the dealer rightly stressed the value of preventative maintenance…
But it all goes to one important thing I think we all generally agree on - preventative maintenance and care is the most important thing for a car… and sorting through the nitpicking reliability ratings where owner behavior can show dramatic differences in reliability for vehicles that by definition could not be different is difficult. If you bought a Dodge Magnum or a Chrysler 300, you would expect to get the exact same engine reliability out of both. But if you went strictly by what the mags (which are certainly useful, do not get me wrong) report, you wouldn’t see that…
I’m always pleased to read from posters who get 300,000 trouble-free miles out of their much-maligned Ford Taurus cars. I’ve rented these cars and don’t enjoy driving them, but basically the small V6 and standard equipment are not that bad. Religious maintenance will keep overheating and head gasket failures at bay and gentle driving will keep the transmission from dying prematurely.
I would call any 96+ Taurus “much maligned”, but the 95 and earlier ones earned their bad reputations. The nice thing is that starting with the 96 model year, the 3.8L was no longer offered, head gasket failures basically disappeared altogether, and the transmission was upgraded so that it became average. Frequent fluid changes and the fact that the base engine was so anemic it couldn’t do much damage actually make it pretty darned reliable.
I wouldn’t touch a 95 or earlier, though… even though there are quite a few in the parking lot at work, so some must have survived.
This is one of the reasons I do actually like Honda and Toyota so much - I don’t view them as always the best decision purely in terms of money, but without them, I don’t believe GM or Ford would have ever gotten their acts together. Conversely, if there wasn’t the threat that GM or Ford could take share back, Honda wouldn’t have as much incentive to get their act together on the transmission problems they had earlier this decade…
The volvo was a 1999 S70 GLT. Great drive, loved the body design, interior was roomy, trunk nice too. I had it for 6 years. The gas milage was still good, even with 105000 miles, 17 to 23 in the city (depending on traffic, which varies based on univesity schedule) and 27/28 on the hwy.
A friend had a Fiat 600 while he was in medical school in the mid-70s. At least one of his house-mates did, too. All driving, save home to visit the 'rents, was city. They never drove on the interstate highway; the car simply wouldn’t keep up with traffic. But home was near DC and school was in Baltimore, so the drive was easy on the older US highway system (Route 1). They had their problems, but the guys kept them running with surplus parts. Gas mileage was fabulous and that meant a lot to starving almost-doctors.
Here is a 600 that appears to be in decent condition (I would be tempted if I had more time/space, and fewer broken toys):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Incredibly-cute-600_W0QQitemZ120236800326QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item120236800326