Used Car Of The Day: 2009 Volvo C30

by Tim Healey

Published: December 16th, 2025

A manual-transmission sporty hatchback? Who wouldn't want one of those? Well, let me take you back to the early Obama years with this 2009 Volvo C30.

The economy was recovering from the Great Recession, Twitter/X was just launching, the Black-Eyed Peas and LMFAO were somehow polluting our radios, and someone was signing on the dotted line to bring home this stick-shift Swede.

Miles are low -- under 70K -- and the car appears to be in good shape and well-maintained.

You can find out more about this car and see more pics here. This one is for sale in Vermont for $7,500 and I gotta admit I am tempted.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey

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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6 of 25 comments

MGS1995 16 hours ago

I kind of like this; were they that bad? It would be an interesting replacement for my 740 wagon.

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- See 3 previous
- 28-Cars-Later 13 hours ago
  
  Night and day difference coming from a RWD.
  
  Like
- Ajla 13 hours ago
  
  Go for it. If it sucks just sell it away.
  
  Like
- JMII 12 hours ago
  
  Mine was a disappointment as detailed above - not sure if my experience was normal or not. I think the problem was these sold in such low numbers that getting parts or information was difficult to say the least. Maybe Volvo owners are used to dealing with similar challenges but as someone who owned Ford, Dodge, multiple Hondas, along with VW and Nissan over the years I found it frustrating. Some C30 parts (like brakes) were shared with Ford and Mazda but other bits were unique to the model.
  
  2
- 28-Cars-Later 12 hours ago
  
  Buy high, sell low; I like it Ajla.
  
  Like
Mattwc1 6 hours ago

I was with this car until I saw it was in Vermont. Don’t get me wrong, Vermont is lovely but the NE is notorious for salting the crap out of the roads in the Winter. I made the mistake of buying a car from that area and chased rust related issues for the duration of owning the car.

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