I got a ticket in Switzerland for ~1000$. I crossed a solid white line to pass a truck with a motorcycle (there was plenty of room, I was not over the speed limit) I also had no highway toll sticker.

Well. There were three arguments here. Lets backtrack to where it started.

Someone said that cars don't last 20 years with the exception of a Volvo perhaps. To which i replied that Volvos aren't very "sturdy" any more since they share the technology with Ford.

That got sidetracked with the arguments whether Volvo has used Ford engines (they have) and the number of cylinders in a Volvo. That being settled - I have had in my family and company different cars. During the warranty period we had to visit Ford's and Volvo's dealership several times. Ford even had some EZrust galvanic processing applied so that all the doors were replaced under warranty. With Honda and Subaru - not a single time, just scheduled service.

Well, i might not have an idea, but i can read. It is an amazing skill. If you bothered to click the link, you would see specs for current s60:

T5 Drive-E FWD
Starting at:
$33,300 MSRP
Engine Description 2.0 Liter, 4-Cylinder, Turbocharged, Direct-Injection
240 hp

T6 Drive-E FWD
Starting at:
$38,150 MSRP
2.0 Liter, 4-Cylinder, Supercharged & Turbocharged, Direct Injection
302 hp

Yes, there are a couple of 5 or 6 cylinder models as well, but you cannot say that ""T6" is a turbo V6 engine. No, they don't sell any 4-cylinder models here."

Volvo doesn't sell any cars with 4-cylinder engines in the US? Really?
Don't let the fact that it is called "T5" or "T6" fool you. Some of them have 4 cylinders despite the name, for instance:
http://www.volvocars.com/us/al... (this is a US site)

Of course if you compare their reliability with a typical American car, they are reliable. If you compare it with Japanese, they are not.

Anyway, the argument was that Volvo does not use Ford engines, but in fact they do use them in most of the current models. Also other parts of the current model range share stuff with Ford lineup. The Geely stuff will start coming later this year.

Unlimited. Although speed is capped at 2mbit/s for that price - but that is enough speed for my mobile.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...
Lots of Volvos listed.

Which contain lot of components by Ford.

Ford selling its interest and model development are two different things. Most of the current Volvo models are designed during the Ford reign and have many Ford components from body to engines. The reliability compared to Japanese (Toyota/Honda/Subaru) is abysmal.

Car systems are usually outdated even before the vehicle hits the market as the industry is used to a 5-6 year development cycle. So 18 months is not "already".

Double? I pay ~5$ a MONTH for data.

You are thinking of a Volvo from the 80ies. Current Volvos are Ford (think Ford Focus, not F150 Ford) and not very sturdy.

I think the comparison was about functional use, not storage capacity per se. 15 years ago we worked on a hard disk and backed up to a tape. Now we work on an SSD and back up to hdd (at least i do).

Word.

We have ~100 SSDs installed in our company, workstations, laptops and servers. Over five years only 3 of them died, all Kingstons. Samsung and Intel have been spotless. All of those that died had the following symptoms - if you accessed a certain sector the drive just dropped off - as if you switched off its power. The drive did not remap them as it always dropped off before it could do so. Otherwise the drive remained functional. Got them replaced under warranty.

I live in Estonia and travel to Finland and UK often. Of course there are some people here who buy an iphone with a 50€ a month contract, but it is much less a norm here than in the US. I choose to buy a phone outright and pay by the minute for calls and data by the bulk. When i travel, i usually buy a local prepaid data sim.

Of course it varies. Yeah, providers try to sell you devices with a sim lock and iphone is the main locked phone as its business model is imported from the U.S. of A. but in some countries it is forbidden to bundle a phone with a contract (fir example Italy and Belgium) and in some countries they are required by law to remove the simlock if you wish to travel (e.g. UK). Anyway, my point was that while in the US the phone worked only in one network through 90ies and large part of the 00s (if you bought a Verizon phone you could not switch to AT&T and vice versa) in EU the GSM was standard and you could (with the exception of a SIM lock) jump the ship quite easily.