My wife, new baby, and I are about to buy a used car and we have a dilema. We are looking at two different Volvo’s, a 2004 XC-70 for $14,500 w/35,000 miles and a 2001 for $10,000 X-70 w/ 78,000 miles. We are trying to make the most intellegent decision but we are stumped.
One is twice as used as the other; but, it’s not half the price. And the older one is coming up to the mileage where more expensive scheduled routine maintenance will be due.
If I really had to watch my gold reserves, I wouldn’t choose any European vehicle. They cost +2 as much to repair as cars from other countries (parts and labor.
Hi from Minnesota!
I currently own 4 Volvo’s 1981 to 2002. They are among the safest cars on the road and I would buy nothing else except for an equally safe but horribly inefficient Suburban Anyway, buy the 2004. I realize that it is more money however there is a problem with Volvo’s from that model year range and the 2001 XC70 is in that range. What happened in a nutshell is Volvo for years and years had a Bosch fuel control system in their cars controlled by a cable and it worked great. Then, in 1999 Volvo made a mistake and had a company called Magneti Marelli from Italy build a fuel system controlled remotely by wires. Well, the experiment failed and several lawsuits were filed. Anyway Volvo came up with a 200,000 mile warranty on the faulty system however some owners are on their 3rd unit you can check out the information at http://vexedvolvo.org/
If you want an XC70 make sure it 2002 or later. On the XC70 they went back to the Bosch system on 2002 models and later. As far as maintenance is concerned go to the mechanics files on this website and find an independent Volvo mechanic in your area. It will save you tons of money! Good luck.