Estate Debate. Tell me about V70s, W201s & Alternatives.

[gordonbennet]

I can't do links but check out  ebay 192274013378 for a 60 plate V70 with no service history then check its MOT history for it's 150,000 mile haircut.

To be fair you'd never know the mileage from looking at it.

[gordonbennet]

Thought it went down from 227738 to 76958 between Jan and Dec 2014.

Either way a bloody good reduction.

 

If it wasn't for that MOT history you'd have no idea it had covered getting on for 3X the mileage shown.

[Tetleysmooth]

^^^ SWMBO quite likes the look of the second one, however either i've punched in some wrong number or it failed the MOT in Feb @ 144596 miles.

 

Bit naughty of the seller.

I should've checked the mot history before linking it - many apologies.

I will do in future.

Disregard that one entirely.

[gordonbennet]

No apology necessary, that MOT history check is one of the best tools we've ever had, first place i go to now if considering a car, Volvos especially hide their miles well.

 

By the way lads i've asked this question before and no one appeared to know the answer, been having a peruse at some of these Volvos cos SWMBO Subaru Outback might last another 5 years or it might fail next week so tend to keep me mincers open in the estate car market.

Well lots of ex police Volvo estates about which should fall into £500ved bracket, but on the ads they mention that cos police it's a more reasonable £245...now is that kosher and will that low bracket be applicable thoughout the cars life?, just seems too good to be true 'tis all.

[gordonbennet]

I was looking at Cazana, which shows adverts too. It was advertised for sale with 300k up.

Bloody Nora, do you think it might have been clocked twice, even the current mileage plus the 2014 reduction don't make 300k.

Private hire?

[bub2006]

Definitely dodgy. No history or papers to back up either. Id suspect it had an haircut first about an hour before its first mot.

[gordonbennet]

Definitely dodgy. No history or papers to back up either. Id suspect it had an haircut first about an hour before its first mot.

You wouldn't bloody thinks so though from the pics, makes you wonder just how many miles the piggin motor really has done.

I wonder if some poor unsuspecting sod will spot that bargain* and snap it up without checking.

Barge pole.

[bub2006]

L9oks tidy but pics can flatter a motor! It could have spent many miles trouncing up and down the motorway. Norfolkandweigh is a driver and his cars look gleaming.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

My van has less than half of 140bhp, it more than keeps up with traffic. Reset your expectations and an underpowered car is fine.

I had a 140bhp V70. It was gutless. Its a heavy old car and it delivered all the power in the wrong places.

 

The 170bhp is no worse on fuel and has a more useful torque curve.

 

I suspect the 140bhp was a badly detuned tax bodge

 

Sent from my SM-A510F using Tapatalk

[Matt]

I can't do links but check out  ebay 192274013378 for a 60 plate V70 with no service history then check its MOT history for it's 150,000 mile haircut.

To be fair you'd never know the mileage from looking at it.

 

CarsIreland.ie says that it has five or more owners too. For sale in 2014 with 1 owner, FSH and 300k miles so two hair cuts and four owners in only four years?

[Tetleysmooth]

Assuming you quite fancy a phase 1 V70 Rusty, how much are you looking to spend?

[2MB]

Out of the 2 suggestions in the OP, I only have experience of ph1 V70s, and the one I had earned my respect massively, through being treated with no respect at all. It was a 140bhp TDI and felt plenty quick enough, maybe the same-powered petrols are a bit shit.

It did a lot of this

There's 2x 1 ton bags of soil in the back there, which didn't particularly phase it. I treat it like shit but it shrugged it off. A quick vac and it was perfect inside again. Factory speakers with an aftermarket head unit was the best quality car stereo I've ever heard. Non-T5s are worth fuck all and they really don't deserve to be.

[Tetleysmooth]

I've found a T5 I quite like the look of, so there's an outside chance I may be selling my 2.5 petrol turbo auto.

 

Silver with black leather. Drivers seat bolster worn, but the rest of the interior is pretty jolly good.

 

Went through the test in January with no advisories. 15 inch Ariane alloys with good tyres.

 

Due a cam belt. Goes like the clappers when required. No smoke or nastiness.

 

Uses no oil or water. Cable operated throttle. All in all, a nice reliable P reg V70.

 

No pics at the moment, because photobucket thieved them all.

[Tetleysmooth]

My old V70 is back up for sale.

 

http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/199499/1997-volvo-v70-20v-auto?page=1&scrollTo=2343747

 

Worth every penny.

Bloody good car.

[forddeliveryboy]

There's enough talk about S1 V70s being better than the 2000-onwards S2s to have made me cautious, but massive choice and good prices saw a 2004 D5 arrive this Summer - so there are now two dizzle V70s in the family, one of each era.

 

The 1998 one felt a bit homespun when it first arrived a couple of years ago, but high quality and individual a little like John Cleese. Its single biggest failing is the suspension which on less than perfect roads is tiring - lack of travel and harshness, but 45mpg+ year round and twice the build quality of a Mercedes of a similar age helps offset this. As does the most impressive sound system I've ever heard in a car (it's original and the top one).

 

The 2004 car feels more generic and mass-market but still decently individual and well built, has a sweet-as engine and properly decent chassis - not something I've ever associated Volvos with. Woman-kind prefers the old one. It's fast, to the point I can't see why anyone would want the higher-powered versions - I'd be uprating brakes and dampers. But this is from the mad-fella who made Scotch Corner from Petersfield in not much more than 4 hours, in a Traction Avant.

 

Computerised wiring, common rail injection and black boxes in double figures is not a good thing to my mind, but the lack of DPF (163hp) is, as are non-coded fuel pumps and injectors. If it all ends up Blackpool illuminations and random cutting out I'll up the veg ratio until it breaks something and make a moody video of the headlamp wipers in the smoke.

 

So far it's done around 8000 faultless miles and blitzes longer journeys compared to the rectangular one. I've welded the exhaust but have yet to reseal an injector, it's not yet sitting in a pool of gunk. It cost £650 and had a new clutch/dmf and cambelt 30k ago (the engine was replaced at 145k when the original cambelt broke) and is returning similar or better fuel mileage to the older car.

 

The wishbone bushes aren't yet shot but I can feel a certain lack of perfect precision which I'm hoping new ones will give. The aircon works and there are no ominous messages scrolling up, or random warning lights, even the intercooler is leak-free - apparently they're a consumable item on these engines, perhaps because turbo boost goes haywire if the vacuum system (which includes engine mounts) isn't tiptop.

 

Salesman silver with interior inspired by Wolfsburg/Ingoldstadt doesn't help endear itself to you, but then it's a tool. I'd originally aimed for a blue one with tan leather, but that lunched its alternator and knocked out the complete heating system before purchase. It was showing 350,000 miles and drove like half or less of that.

 

The odd thing is that such a decent chassis (Ford used it in cheapened form for its luxury American cars) only survived seven years and one generation, you feel Volvo poured everything they had into making it so good (they had no money to productionise the estate or diesel until Ford stepped in), the replacement used an enlarged Focus one.

 

I've driven plenty of W210s and A6s and reckon these old V70s make much more sense. It's not easy to find big cars you like and which are tough and reliable having covered so many tens of thousands of miles in CXs and 124 estates, but here is one.

 

[forddeliveryboy]

Having said all that, the square one does feel more special and hasn't put a foot wrong in over 40,000 miles. They have fewer known problems and this does feel a properly tough old thing.

 

The clock ticked over to 200k a while ago, all it has needed beyond oil, filters and brakes (including one front caliper, nos for £43) is the bonded rear damper mounts (less than a tenner for both from Amazon). It's due an atf change and the cambelt looms in another 15-20k.

 

 

I'll try a set of 195/65-15s to calm the ride, it's done well on the pair of (nearly new) Pirellis and Barums it came with - there's still a good 3-4mm all round. In contrast, the Octavia went through rubber every 35k.

[Squirrel2]

^ Interesting to read of other Volvo owners' experiences of these cars.

 

I am on my second Phase 2 D5, an XC70. My first Volvo V70 a 2006 D5 (185) with manual gearbox and 145k on it, came in to my ownership in 2012 as I needed a 'long-legged' car for work and Mrs Squirrel pushed me the Volvo way because of the miles I was doing. I was not disappointed; it had done everything we demanded of it.

However only giving it oil changes at the recommended intervals of 18k and our local garage, entrusted with the servicing, not using the correct spec oil for the engine meant that by the time I had got it past 250k the motor was probably smoking. I say probably because the DPF was catching it all; the only clues that something was amiss was an increasing oil and fuel consumption as the DPF was being regenerated more often. In the end it was constantly choking up and going into limp mode. Faced with an engine replacement or re-build I reluctantly scrapped it at 276k and then went out and bought another one; an XC70, a year older at 2005 and, crucially, without DPF as it is the 163hp version. Not as refined as the later car and with vacuum system faults still to be sorted but now with more time on my hands I have gone back to doing my own servicing and am changing the oil more frequently on this one.