I need a vehicle to tow my caravan and have seen a Volvo V70 turbo diesel 1997 R reg with 130000 miles on. Full Volvo service history, asking price £9995. Good spec. with aircon. Whole vehicle looks good. What are the likely faults at this mileage? Obviously much of the mileage will have been motorway. Is the vehicle overpriced? Should I buy or is it likely to become very expensive very quickly? Any advice/experience would be gratefully received.
Peter Leech
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Peter,
HJ will know the market for these well but my gut feeling is that it should be much less.
The mileage isn't just a bit up but four times average. This sort of mileage kills values in a way you have to experience to believe, try selling such a car into the trade. The only value as HJ mentions in similar threads is to a clocker.
Cars with such huge mileages over the first few years often float about the trade around half normal price. I don't think this car is even down to auction price for a normal high miler (say 80,000).
As far as mileage goes I have no problems with that figure (assuming the price is right). I don't know the Volvo diesel in particular but our Citroen TD has covered 215,000 with ease and we are just replacing it with another 241,000 mile Citroen TD.......and they ought to be (?) a lower build quality than the Volvo.
David
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David
Thanks for the comment - I know from previous threads that you are a Citroen fan; What is the Xantia like in the reliability stakes? The turbo diesel and suspension make them attractive vehicles for towing on the face of it, but the reliability reputation makes me hesitate. For the same asking price as the V70 I could buy a late model Xantia with say 40000miles (plus maybe a ZX for the kids). Can you give me an objective opinion? Present car is a 93 Saab9000 CSE with a penchant for ignition cassette modules. Thanks
Peter
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Peter
I'm on my second Xantia - the first was a 1994 TD and it towed very well. My current model is the HDI 110 and as a tow vehicle it is superb. I bought it at just under 2 years old and paid £8K.
The torque spread is so much better than the old indirect injection model - there really is no comparison. I currently tow a Swift Challenger 470 (gross weight about 1150Kg, from memory).
I hear all the stories about realiability but I have not experienced them (yet). My philosophy is that if I can buy a car for this sort of money I will put about £2K aside in the bank and hope I never have spend it on major (unexpected) replacement parts over the 5 years or so that I plan to keep the car.
One factor that a lot of people don't consider is the opportunity cost of the extra money they spend on an expensive car (i.e. the money you could make if you invested it - £2K @ 6% is £120 per year).
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Peter,
Oh dear I've started something now. I was only mentioning the TD Citroen engines as an example of the potential mileages they will cover without problems.
I am a writer for the Citroen Car Club magazine and a long term Citroen supporter, right from the DS days, you could say I was biased.
But if the Xantias were rubbish I wouldn't have one or blindly support them. I honestly think these days most of the middle range cars are a lot closer in quality than years ago. Is it possible VW and the like have dropped a bit and Citroen have moved up a little?
I would say go and look at Xantias, you will get huge value if you like them.
David Lacey is the man to give an unbiased overview of their reliability, I think he maintains a small fleet.
I'll let other less committed Citroen guys argue the for/against case.
David
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Look at a VW Passat TDI. 110bhp and 180lb(?) torque. For £10,000 you could pick up a R plate at main dealer with 50,000 miles. Believe they won awards for best tow car a couple of years ago?
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This V70 has the old Audi 5 cylinder TDI engine which is a bit of a bugger for slippng out of its injector pump timing, needs a new timing belt ever 40,000 miles and, very important, also needs a new water pump every 80k because this shares the same belt. Changing belts on these is expensive because it's very fiddly to get the valve timing and injecor timing right. I wouldn'f go for this car. You'd be better off with an ex police V70 T5 with 140k from an auction at about £4,000.
HJ
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I wonder if anyone has had any experience of buying and running an ex police t5 for a number of years.?
Ive been tempted in the past to buy but have been told that.
they are expensive to fix
have been hammered (driven hard from cold, kerbed etc.)
impossible to sell on.
any views would be appreciated
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