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Hi,
I'm new on this board. Have been reading the threads for a couple of weeks now. We've just purchased a new '04 V70 non-turbo yesterday. The only options were premium package, auto-trans, and mimas wheels. My wife has to have a wagon, so no Accord's or Camry's. The only other "real" choices are Mazda6 or Legacy. Because of incentives, we got the car for about $7500 below sticker from carsdirect.com which is the main reason we went with the V70.
Consumer reports gave the '03 V70 pretty good reliability ratings, and it's a recommended buy. The weak point being electrical. I'm hoping the '04 would be the same or better.
My wife loves Volvo's. We still have her '87 240DL as a spare car. She made the comment that the new V70 doesn't feel as solid as her 240, but sure is prettier. After close inspection, I feel the workmanship is not as good as our '04 Odyssey, but we love the way the V70 drives.
With the information from this board, I feel a lot more comfortable in owning the V70 and knowing what to expect. Thx.
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Have a new v70 2.4. Seems to be improved over our 94 850. One thing that I hope bodes well for the new car is that some Bosch items are now something else. Had lots of Bosch problems. The MAS on our car is a Denso unit. Can this be euro feel with Japanese reliability?
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We traded a 2001 Subaru Outback for a 2004 V70 2.4. This is a great car. We started out by looking at VW Passats. After discounts, our car with automatic, the premium package, touring package, climate package, bi-xenon headlamps and 16" wheels was just under $30k, about a thousand more than a 1.8 Passat wagon with leather and climate package.
The Volvo is a much nicer car to drive than the Passats we drove, or the Subaru that was traded. We took the car for a 600 mile round trip last weekend and averaged above 31 mpg (on regular fuel), including some town driving.
I wish I would have bought a Volvo instead of the Subaru, I would have saved me trading this time.
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Didn't know the 2.4T was made in 2004...seems the last year that was offered was 2003. In 2004 the V series was upgraded so you had the choices of:
1. Base Model (non-turbo)
2. 2.5T (Low end Turbo)
3. T5 (Higher end Turbo)
4. R (300hp highest end Turbo)
--
Current owner of a '04 V70 2.5T. Previous owner of a '94 850 Turbo Wagon
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posted by
someone claiming to be Eddie W. in FL
on
Mon Aug 2 04:00 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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Previous poster didn't say he had a turbo. The '04 V70 non-turbo is a 2.4 engine whereas the turbo is a 2.5 engine.
regards,
eddie W. in FL
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My car is a 2.4, no turbo. Don't feel I need one in the type driving I do.
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Gotcha...my mistake...sorry about that.
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Current owner of a '04 V70 2.5T. Previous owner of a '94 850 Turbo Wagon
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Tony,
I have a 2001 Wagon coming of lease next month that has been trouble free after 40000 miles.
I'm now looking into a 2004 V70 and I have 2 options:
A used 2004 for $24,000 (same as your car, non-turbo with all the usual options)Its supposed to be in excellent condition, just had 15k service and garaged kept. the owner is having her third child and needs a van.
Or.. A new 2004 for about $27,000.
Any thoughts? I figure the dealer will find a way to add on another 500.00 so I'm looking at around a $3500 difference between the two cars. (plus tax)
Any thoughts? Advice?
Geo
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Hi Geo,
We went with carsdirect.com. The price you see is really the price you pay. Sure, they'll try to sell you gap insurance, extended service contract, lojack, and extra stuff like that. Ask for the price of the extra, tell them you'll think it over, do some research on the web. If you don't want it, just say NO. Since everything is worked either by phone or email, you don't feel pressured as if you are sitting inside a dealership.
Mine (sorry, my wife's) was $26,880. It's $29,380 with tax/registration. There could be several hundred dollars difference in price depending on the region.
Because of the huge discounts on new V70's, the bluebook value on the used '04 V70 is probably not a very useful guideline.
Is the used V70 in the color that you want? (Our's has the extra cost metallic paint.) Also, do you believe in the 7500mi oil change that the factory recommends, or do you prefer more frequent oil changes. The used V70 most likely had the oil changed at 7500mi intervals.
I intend on changing the oil at 3750mi intervals, so I'll bring to the dealer for the free service every other time.
Good luck on your shopping,
Tony
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posted by
someone claiming to be Steve
on
Mon Aug 2 06:42 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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You can save a lot of money with carsdirect.com, but having recently gone through a carsdirect.com transaction with a friend of mine, I can tell you that experiences vary greatly. In short, when she went to pick up the car, the carsdirect.com rep hadn't delivered any of the proper paperwork to the dealer and was extremely hostile (when we could actually contact him.) After about 3 hours of trying to resolve all the issues, the dealer paid carsdirect.com to back out of the transaction so they could sell to her directly. Seems that the quality of the local carsdirect rep can vary considerably.
As for oil change intervals, call around to your local car parts shops and see if they sell oil test kits. You can send in a sample of your 7500 mile oil, and see if it needs to be changed more regularly. You may be surprised- I found that even with hard city driving, I could get at least 10k miles between changes of Mobil 1.
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My first experience w/ carsdiect.com was with the purchase of my father's Vibe. The price was good enough. We probably didn't pay "the absolute bottom line", but I hate spending a whole day at the dealership. The only "annoyance" was that carsdiect tried several times to sell us an extended service plan. We held firm and said NO.
Our second experience was with our Odyssey 4 months ago. This time, carsdirect asked me only once if I wanted an extended service plan. I said no, and it was never mentioned again. We paid $3000 below sticker on the Odyssey, probably not the bottom line, but good enough for us.
The third time was with this V70. Before going with carsdirect, I called the fleet manager at our local (Pasadena) Volvo dealer. They could not even come close to the advertised price at carsdirect. Our V70 was located at a different dealership (Culver City) than my local. Because we are financing the V70, carsdiect tried to sell us gap insurance. We just said NO. My insurance company pays for replacement cost of a new car if it's totaled during the first year.
All 3 times, taking delivery was completely painless. I did not even have to go to the dealership to pickup the Odyssey nor the V70. Both were delivered to my work with a full tank of gas.
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We bought a new V70 2.5T last August...a year is coming up in a week or so. We have been very pleased with it. It gets great mileage...31MPG on a recent trip to the beach, even for a turbo! The 30,000 mile free service is nice but the dealer doesn't cover all of the bases...so do you homework here...for instance, they will never change the transmission fluid in your car...will if you ask, but will be hesitant about it....wierd. No, I don't believe in the 7500 mile oil change with "regular" oil. If you leave regular oil it it, I would do it at the interval that you mention. We put Synthetic Mobil-1 in our Volvo at 3500 miles and are now taking in our own synthetic oil to the dealer for the free oil change. We figure that the car will be fine at dealer's oil change interval with synthetic. The tire rotation is another issue. On the first service at 7500 miles, you get a tire rotation...but guess what...they don't re-balance the tires, and there is no more free tire rotation after the first one, so my suggestion is to do like we did and buy a "life time" rotation somewhere (ours is at Freeservice Tire, locally and only cost about $50...but I re-check lug torque each time and make sure it's right at 100Lbs.) This seems to work fine. I also have the Mimas wheels. Do you like them? I'm okay with them but can't afford other alloys right now so, would really like to find another Mimas wheel to take the place of the spare. Did you know that the 16 inch (I assume you have the same size tire as mine) tire fits in the rear, spare wheel well? I added OEM fog lights myself right before christmas last year, and that wasn't a difficult job at all, and price wasn't bad either, as I found a good price on a kit over the internet, but after installation, I had to take the car to the dealer for them to turn the lights on with a computer upgrade...to the tune of about $100. So, you'll learn that owning these newer volvos is more expensive than owning the older one's. Guess that's about all...our car is the red, metalic...ruby color...my wife calls the car "Ruby." Anyway, good luck to you and if there is anything I can help you with, let me know....
Welcome to the Board!
--
Current owner of a '04 V70 2.5T. Previous owner of a '94 850 Turbo Wagon
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We have the Mimas w/ 205/55-16, which are fine. We just wanted something a little bigger than the stock 195/65-15. I didn't give it too much thought about getting a Mimas for the spare. We usually get our tires from Costco or Sam's club. I think they offer some kind of lifetime rotation/balance service also. Both our V70 and '87 240DL are silver w/ black interior. You can probably tell that silver is my wife's favorite color.
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