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As yet another kid joins the driving horde, we are looking for a car for her to commute to college in next year. She is a nervous nellie driver and still has not gotten her license. Next year she will be driving 100 miles a day commuting to college. I am nervous too.
My brother has a 1998 Volvo v70 XC (straight 5 turbo) he is selling. It has 240,000 miles on it. The engine and turbocharger have been rebuilt and also the gearbox. I do not know when, but at least 10,000 miles ago and it could have been 100,000 miles ago. He bought it about two years ago. It needs a new heater core ($800) and AC work ($???). Otherwise it seems to be in decent shape. It may be a good car for her. It is safe, AWD so it is good in winter conditions. She does not like little cars and this is reasoanbly big. Does anyone know these cars well? Are there common problems we need to watch for, or reasons to avoid it altogether? I understand they tend to eat brakes and rotors, but that is work we can readily do oursleves.
I do not think either the heater core or the AC really must be repaired. If the car lasts thorugh to summer, she can get the AC fixed with summer job $ if she wants to. The heater core may be more critical. However, when I had one go bad, I used an inverter and a 400 watt hair dryer to defrost the windshield until I could afford the new heater core. It has heated seats, so she will not freeze while driving it. Is there any reason this has to be repaired sooner than later? It leaks if you turn on the heater, but does not seem to leak coolant if you do not turn on the heater.
The early AWDs were problematic for Volvo, and the transfer case is the main culprit with that vehicle, with some transmission issues. Other than that, it's a fairly typical Volvo, pretty reliable, safe, and predictible, but will require repairs that are a tad bit more expensive, and may need a specialist shop. Too bad it's not the V70 FWD wagon as that tends to have fewer problems than the AWD variants of the XC70/V70AWD/V70R.
The AWD does require a bit of extra maintenance, and tires should be replaced only as a set. ABS modules can fail, and peculiarly, the Volvo wagons tend to have a failure of the gas filler door, though if your brother's is still functional, it's probably been replaced at some point. You are correct that brakes and rotors are common replacements on the Volvo wagons, but since you are handy and have a son who can handle brake jobs, that would not be of much concern to you, as it would to someone who had to pay Volvo rates for brakes/rotors. Also check the interior panel of the rear hatch door, as the tendency is for them to come loose with age that can wreak havoc with the locking mechanism, and you would need to fix that. However, if it's functional, that was likely addressed before your brother acquired the car.
I would tend to want to fix the heater core, only because a Volvo without coolant is not a pretty thing, and the engine can easily overheat. If you're sure it's only leaking when the heat is turned on, that's one thing, but a defroster is required in your neck of the woods in winter, I'd imagine. At 240k, much of the rebuild work has likely been done, so you are in a good position with that vehicle, such that you could get a good number of miles out of it before a critical failure.
As to run away, well, the car may have a penchant to swing by Village Palm in Grosse Pointe. And, don't forget she will have to have at least one friend named Bitsy, and wear pearls almost all the time.
__________________
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
The early AWDs were problematic for Volvo, and the transfer case is the main culprit with that vehicle, with some transmission issues. Other than that, it's a fairly typical Volvo, pretty reliable, safe, and predictible, but will require repairs that are a tad bit more expensive, and may need a specialist shop. Too bad it's not the V70 FWD wagon as that tends to have fewer problems than the AWD variants of the XC70/V70AWD/V70R.
The AWD does require a bit of extra maintenance, and tires should be replaced only as a set. ABS modules can fail, and peculiarly, the Volvo wagons tend to have a failure of the gas filler door, though if your brother's is still functional, it's probably been replaced at some point. You are correct that brakes and rotors are common replacements on the Volvo wagons, but since you are handy and have a son who can handle brake jobs, that would not be of much concern to you, as it would to someone who had to pay Volvo rates for brakes/rotors. Also check the interior panel of the rear hatch door, as the tendency is for them to come loose with age that can wreak havoc with the locking mechanism, and you would need to fix that. However, if it's functional, that was likely addressed before your brother acquired the car.
I would tend to want to fix the heater core, only because a Volvo without coolant is not a pretty thing, and the engine can easily overheat. If you're sure it's only leaking when the heat is turned on, that's one thing, but a defroster is required in your neck of the woods in winter, I'd imagine. At 240k, much of the rebuild work has likely been done, so you are in a good position with that vehicle, such that you could get a good number of miles out of it before a critical failure.
As to run away, well, the car may have a penchant to swing by Village Palm in Grosse Pointe. And, don't forget she will have to have at least one friend named Bitsy, and wear pearls almost all the time.
Thanks. I will check on the typical problem issues. Brother says it does not normally lose coolant but if he turns on the heater, he is treated to a steam sauna. Another daughter, who is supposed to be buying a new car on her own but is stalling, can drive it at first. then her brother will stop complaining about her dirving one of his cars (and giving her daily lectures I am thinking the lack of heat may encourage her to get going and buy a car. She can use the inverter and hair dryer for defrosting. If the heater core is simlar to the last one I had problems with, we will have it fixed by a mechanic or not at all. On my car, the part was about $180, but the labor was something like $450. If a mechanic needs that much time, it is something I am not really interested in doing. I figure it takes me about 3x the time a mechanic will take (excpet brakes, they charge a ridiculous amount for brakes). .
The heater core on this car is more easily replaceable than you're being lead to believe.
Volvo had some models that required a substantial interior tear down to access the heater core, but the one in this model
IIRC, is relatively simple to drop out into the right side passenger footwell area. A couple of hours project at the most.
In any event, I think it would be risky to drive this car in the winters in your area without having a reliable heater/defroster. With a driver that's already not very confident, putting more limitations upon the vehicle capability for defrosting and heating will be problematic. You daughter's safety in simply being able to turn on the climate control sytem to accomodate the conditions should be the primary consideration.
Overall, however, I'd not rate a turbo'ed Volvo as a good car for a first-time driver in adverse driving conditions. There's a lot of performance to be had with the turbo boost and a little twitch on the gas pedal. IMO, your daughter would be better able to manage the non-turbo series of this car a lot better during inclement driving conditions.
as much as I like Volvos, I would shy away from the early AWD wagons. The early ones had a problematic transfer case and a fragile rear diiferential. Many owners give up on the system and bypass it. A Suburu might be a better bet.
My DD is a 05 V50 T5 AWD and it handles everything wintery with utter competence. So they do have the chops to do a great job but the reliability is going to be an issue with a 98.
Around here, subarus are too expensive unless like most of the older ones it has a blown head gasket.
The "gearbox" was rebuilt once. I think be "gearbox" he means the rear diff. I will find that out.
I forgot to mention one advantage of this one is price - $1500.
I drove this thing once when my brother borrowed our truck. It does not seem to have any significant acceleration. However I did nto push it and I am used to driving a 300 hp car, so people may have differences of opionion on the meaning of powerful. I will drive it and see what it does he is rinigng to thnakgsgiving tomorrow.
The new driver daughter will drive it next year. we will get the heater core fixed by then. Another daugter would be driging it first. She is a pretty experienced dirver and has drivien to work/school about 40 miles each way every day for the past four years. She has some bad driving habits (specifically charging up on people at lights and stop signs, but she is a decent driver. She is the one i want to encourage to go buy her own car ASAP. Thus, the lack of heat may be a good thing. She can drfost the windshield with a hair dryer like I once did. . The heated seats can keep her from freezing. Once she gets a car, then maybe we will tear it apart ourselves (if we decided to buy it) and rpelace the heater core during the summer.
What I want to avoid is another vehicle like the Grand Caravan we bought for the older daughter to drive. We paid $1800 for it but then proceeded to put about $4000 into repairs in the next two years - then it committed suicide.
The problems with thew AWD concern me. I want to find out exactly what ahs already been repaired. As someone pointed out,one good thing about 240,000 miles - most of the common problems probably occurred and were repeaired, but will they occur again?
An early cross country is probably one of the worst cars you could possibly buy for a cheap college car. There's no way I would dump that on a college student and tell her she could pay her own money to keep that piece on the road, unless it's too cheap/free to pass up. They'd be better off making payments on a new cheap car, than trying to afford the constant stream of expensive repairs on an old Cross Country.
Are there common problems? Yes, pretty much everything is a common problem. Are there reasons to avoid it? The list of reasons *not* to avoid it might be shorter: It was a safe car back when it was made, it's not too small, it is a decent driving car when everything works (which is rare), and the engine usually lasts forever when well maintained (which most of them aren't). And it's all wheel drive which is fantastic for a snowy climate (if it hasn't been disconnected because the center differential broke, which they all did).
Never mind the heater core, that's not a surprise. Don't mind the A/C either, because every evaporator in those sleds blew up. For that piece of machinery, A/C is optional; just keeping the thing in operational condition will be the true necessity. It's an awful car, and unless you are looking for something that you can just shove in the barn and work on here and there, it's probably not a good choice.
If you said a V70 or an S70, I would tell you a different story. But not the Cross Country. It just adds another layer of problems on top of a car that wasn't really the best to begin with. The late 90s and early 00s was a very bad time to buy most Volvo products. Then around 2004 they took the P2 cars, made a whole slew of modifications and corrections, and that was pretty much the end of the problems, save for a few remaining components that weren't cost effective to redesign (T6 transmissions, primarily). The later 850 and S/V70 cars were not bad. Not great, but not bad.
Edit: Just noticed you said $1500, and today that doesn't buy much, so it's probably a fair price for its condition. Just be wary of the AWD system, which is a perpetual issue with the early Cross Country.
Last edited by 43north87west; 11-21-2012 at 01:09 PM..
For $1500 in today's market, that's not a bad price for anything that's running, albeit with a couple of problems. The A/C was bound to go out sooner or later, as that has happened in the majority of that series of wagons by now, and is relatively common. It's a "nice to have" feature, I agree, and one that you could fix later. As to the repairs recurring, it depends upon the problem, as many, if fixed well, such as the hatchback panel and non-wear items, it should not require anything too major.
The AWD is the main issue with that series, and knowing when the transfer case (aka bevel gear) was replaced is an important consideration. The fluid should be changed every 50k miles or so, earlier being better than later. And, where many people ran into problems with excessive wear was the tires. That's why I mentioned above that tires must be replaced as a set. My Volvo mechanic in New York shudders when he sees XCs come into his shop with mismatched tires, because that's a problem waiting to happen, and when he tells the people to replace the tires, they think he means only the mismatched tires, not that all four have to be replaced at the same time. This was an education issue as Volvo had never had an AWD previously and some people did not fully understand the need to have all four tires with the same tread depth and its affect on the AWD system.
The other thing is that timing belts are every 105k miles, so that's an item I would check, as well, to know if it currently needs a timing belt, or can get by for a while without one.
__________________
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
The motor was rebuilt by a friend of my brothers, then the tansfer case went out shortly after. The family that owned it did nto want ot put any more money into it so they just sold it (cheap) to the mechanic. He then rebuilt the transfer case and sold the car to my brother at his cost. My brother has put about 20K miles on it over two years.
The tailgate interoiior panel has come off as mentioned, but it came off because the rear window wiper motor quit and my brother removed the panel to replace the motor. The fasteners break off when you remove the rear panel, so they need to be replaced. He said it does not impact the operation of the tailgate.
My son found a used heater core for $14.95. It is a risk, but if it really only takes a couple of hours to swap it out, we could try several times at that price before it gets too expensive.
It is probably worth a try and just see how long it lasts. If something expensive goes out, we can just scrap it and get part of our money back. If it lasts a year, it will be a decent choice. However I still need to look it over, check the tires, brakes, etcetera and let the two daughters drive it to see if it is tolerable to them. I am guessing there may be other things that do not work that he simply forgot about. It seems tha tmost older worn out cars end up with ABS failure and/or a permanent check engine light. He did not drive it out for thanksgiving, so we will go look at it this week probably.
You do not get much for $1500, but my son has had pretty good luck so far with his two $500 cars, one of which gets 42 MPG on the freeway at times. Maybe my son will find another $500 special for his sister to drive. However his cars were sold to him below market becuase the owners of the cars like him and he liked the cars. Both of them were probably worth something over $1000, but they gave him a break. My brother cannot afford to give us that kind of break, he can probably get $1500 for it on craigslist. He just sold an absolute POS toyota with rusted out floorboards, no radio and several other annoying, but not critical problems and got $1300 for it (I would have scrapped it for $500).
With 20k on a rebuilt transfer case and around the same on an engine rebuild, I would definitely take the risk on the car for $1500. Some people actually convert the XCs to FWDs in that series when the transfer case goes out, because of the propensity for additional failures.
The rear hatch is an annoyance, mostly, when the clips come off, or as happened, the wiper motor fails, but other than that, as long as the locking mechanism is functional, you should not have a problem. The problem is if it will not lock, the alarm will not set, and it can be a pain to be sure all the other doors are secured when you leave the car.
For $15, definitely have your son order the part and work on the wagon himself, should you purchase it from your brother. It's good experience for him in that he likes to work on cars, and even if it works for a month or two, no harm, because the part is inexpensive, and he will then know how to swap it out faster the next time. If you had to pay labor, then it would be a larger proposition, but it's a good learning experience for him.
If your son is committed to helping you maintain the Volvo, it sounds like it's not a bad buy, from what you have described. I would take a risk, even with a budding mechanic in the family, as you have skills too, so you can deal with the brakes and whatnot that are common wear items on any car, but seemingly wear faster on that series of Volvo wagon. Even if you get 12-18 months out of the car before there's a critical failure, it's still much less expensive than cabs/gas money for a carpool for the daughters who would be driving it.
The only item you haven't mentioned is the transmission, so I would pay attention to that when evaluating the car, and would encourage your daughters to accelerate gently so as not to cause undue wear on an aged transmission and/or turbo.
__________________
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
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