What Should I Look Out For When Buying A V70?

I am looking to buy a V70 less than 3 years old and less than 30,000 miles
in the UK. What should I look out for or br wary of ?

And what will some of my service expences amount to ?

Hope some of you out there can help.

Andy C.

 

Do you mean the current (new) shape V70??

Tim..

 

Hopefully.....

 

I have an '01 V70 XC with 38,000 miles and have had no problems. I
bought it in the UK but it was built for the US market.

I purposely didn't get leather seats or a sunroof. The regular seats
are better in hot or cold weather and hold up better. The only Volvo
seats that I ever had that didn't hold up well were the leather seats on
a P1800.

The '01 V70 was the first edition of a major update. This update has
proved to be a major improvement and I would highly recommend it.

The '97-99 Volvo V70 station wagon had a recall:
Tailpipe may extend too far beyond rear bumper, posing hazard to anyone
exiting from third-row seat on 50,835 station wagons made 1/97-10/98.
What to do:
Check tailpipe, and if necessary, have dealer modify it.

 

The leather in the new ones hold up VERY well. Friends of mine have 105K Kms
on their 2001 V70, the seats look mint... and they have a big golden lab
too, but I think he goes in the trunk mostly. We have 139K Kms on our 10
year old 960, the seats are in amazing shape, the drivers seat has a few
scratches on it, but this was user error, not the seats, there are no
cracks, or anything but the expected broken in look of the leather... which
looks very nice anyways.

As for the friends who have the new style V70, they are buying it off their
lease, because they can't find another vehicle on the market they would like
to lease.

They have had to put sevral thousand into it over the past year and a bit to
fix the DSTC, brake sensors, and computer modules... They had a computer
problem, and I think it just buggered up all the sensors... so I think that
is what caused them all their problems, their car has never been
undriveable. It had to be flatbedded once, for safety sake tho (this is all
in the sensor fiasco), the dealer was almost crying when he saw a new Volvo
coming in on the back of a truck, he felt bad when he told them he would
change out their entire computer system for the brakes, which includes the
DSTC and that computer module... the car works PERFECTLY now, and they
enjoyed the use of a new V40 for two days. The dealer regretted that he
could not do this under warranty, but there KMs were too high, I think he
did discount them tho. There car runs great now . My friend loves it, so
does her family, it really is a great car.

 

OI ! Don't scare the poor chap!
I would like to suggest that one of the biggest expenses will be
Tyres/Tires. My front tyres last about 10K miles, but back ones last 30-40K.
I do lots of town driving and country lanes e.t.c in my 1997 model, but the
new shape V70 is bound to be the same. It also has 17 inch wheels normally,
so these will be even more expensive than my 16s. Anyone who already has
one, Refrain from lecturing me about tracking e.t.c, my tyres do wear
evenly, and I don't really drive like a nutcase. Just short journeys, with
rough roads!!

Apart from that, if you get a good-un, you'll never want anything else. Mine
has done me proud for 220K UK miles, and will hopefully do me long enough to
find a 3-year old D5 new shape for the right price (under £15K!)
P.S My cloth seats look in very good shape, but the driver's heated bit
burned through. (common on early 97 ones). I'll shortly be fitting some new
ones, or leather, whatever I can find.
Good luck.
Joe.
Peterborough
UK.

 

Most of my driving is country roads or highway driving. Very little
city driving. My '01 V70 XC does very well on tires. The original
Pirelli Scorpio tires have 38,000 miles on them and are just now getting
to the point where they will need replacing. At about 40,000 miles I
will replace them with another set of Pirelli Scorpios. They do great
on flooded highways and in snow. They also are great on the open road.
On any FWD/AWD vehicle you need to rotate the tires regularly to insure
even wear. I have my Volvo dealer check my tires every routine service
(7,500 miles) and see if they need rotating. The reason I am sticking
with the Scorpios is that they drive great and have never shown uneven
wear. By the way I was surprised to find that a set of Scorpios from
the Volvo dealer cost about the same as more poorly rated tires from
Sears. Sears doesn't carry a tire as good as the Scorpio (their words,
not mine).

 

I have a V70 and I swear I will not buy a volvo any more. The design is
ugly, the interior (plastic) does not last very long. The worst is the parts
are very expensive in NZ(Perhaps it is not true in the UK /Europe). I found
the price of a brand new bloody head lamp unit is almost double a Mercedes
S-class's (almost x2).
The pro is the car's body is very rigid and strong.

Sorry to all Volvo owner...

"Stephen M. Henning" <>
"Joe landy"

 

That's because the V70's tail lamp is a hell of a lot more difficult to
produce then the S classes.

.... Quite a bit more complicated

I used to work for the company that did the injection molding systems for
the Volvo's, Mercedes, Maybach, Renualt, many, many, many other car manfs...
We had some showpieces in some from Volvo, some from Chysler, some benz, the
Volvo stuff was by far the most complicated, and large, which makes it even
worse from a financial aspect.

As far as the interior goes, the V70 I have been in, with 100+ K Kms on it
looked mint. Maybe you abuse your car more then they do, I don't know...

 

The design is the same now as when you bought it. You should have
looked.

In the US our headlamps aren't bloody and only cost $7 which isn't much
on a $35,000 car.

 

I think he means the cost of the whole unit, not just the bulb, if the lense
gets broken it's rather pricey anywhere.