Used Car Of The Day: 2008 Volvo C70
Today's UCOTD is a 2008 Volvo C70.
This one has over 126K miles on it, and the seller says all services are up to date. That includes the timing belt replacement.
There are also new tires and brakes. The top works, though there is a chip in the windshield. The navigation system doesn't work, but the car does have heated seats.
You can find this one for sale in Houston for $6,800. Click here for more.
[Images: Seller]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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I remember renting one of these way back when. The driving experience was positively underwhelming but I remember thinking the sound system was rather good.
"This one has over 126K miles on it"
Eh ok...
"and the seller says all services are up to date. That includes the timing belt replacement."
Good but we'd need a service date on that, "replacement" in 2021 is still technically a replaced belt from the original, semantics and all.
"There are also new tires and brakes."
Nice.
"The top works"
For now.
"though there is a chip in the windshield".
Could be a red flag, on my Toyota list price was all the money to replace my windshield because "sensors". I'm not sure of the P1 came with similar sensors but I'd say there's a good chance its not a $250 Safelite installs it in your driveway thing.
"The navigation system doesn't work"
I don't know if that's because of the 3G termination or not, I'm thinking it is. No biggie.
"but the car does have heated seats."
I believe they all do (C70s I mean).
"6,800"
So here's the thing(s):
-This is a P1 and therefore is a new platform shared with Mazda and Ford. The prior C70 is a P80, which means it was the "full" line platform which P2 and P3 descend from. That means more than a few bits are not cross compatible with the other Volvo models and likely unique to either the C70 or the P1 as a whole. On the P80 C70, the roof and suspension are unique to the convertible and doors/seats obviously unique to the coupe/conv P80 but the rest is the same as the S70/V70.
tl;dr: you won't get parts savings because this isn't a S60/S80/V60/V70/XC70/XC90 platform and it probably cost Volvo more to mfg as a result.
-This is still running the AW55 automatic, which hates you. Now supposedly they put it on SSRIs so its hate is more mellow after 2004 but this is a transaxle which must be serviced before it suicides itself. That's not a fun DIY task in the AW55, although I have seen alternative methods on Youtube. You *must* use JWS 3306 fluid from Aisin or Volvo who sellers rebranded Aisin Warner fluid.
-Hard top convertibles have very little trunk room. You might be thinking, "well, duh" but my P80 C70 has a surprising amount of trunk space to the point I can comfortably fit my golf bag and can even make Costco runs in it (the last bit shocked me when I tried it years ago). You won't be doing so in this.
-Now my soft top C70 has put me through a lot (body work, rare roof motor broke, AW55 hates me, timing belt etc.) after everything I have about $6,5 in it (give or take $500) and my car has 47K and worth at least $10K. Now you dear reader are not me because I am just that good, but $6,8 knowing what one of these needs and well north of the magic 100K... eh....
For the right money I'd be on it but in all seriousness it would be about half or less and probably come to me salvage title needing front end work like my current one did. I also think dude needs to drop at least a grand from whatever KBB fiction he read because his windshield needs replaced and its a I-think-I'm-a-Mercedes-Volvo. These are not the 240s of old by a long shot.
Edit: These are not common in the US but they're out there. If your budget really is $7,500 or higher and you like these (or want a semi-reliable hardtop and can't afford Lexus' SC430) buy a better example of this. This one is BHPH/Copart fodder at this point but could be a buy for the right money and person.