It is official. Today the saga ended as the loan came off the books, and Volvo Cars NA is the proud owner of our mint mint 7k luscious turbo coupe. We delivered to the car to a local Volvo dealer where we were met by the factory rep.

They bought it back under the lemon law buyback program, under which they refunded us the whole cost of the car- basically $42k, less our attorney's fees
from the recovery and a reasonable mileage charge for the miles we did use the car. Loan payments, interest, everything we got back so we are where we started from new. Cool way to unload a C70 after a year, get your money back, because trying to sell it yourself you can figure a loss of maybe $10k; the C70 is a dog on the used car market, overpriced when new.

Apart from torque steer under hard throttle, the FWD C70 is a smooth fun car to own. Beautiful instruments and comfortable seats and the most luscious steering wheel I ever gripped.

But "Camille" had problems from new; she squeaked in the windshield and leaked water and the dealers could never fix it. Well over 5 tries, prima facie California Lemon laws. NEVER EVER let them open a repair order and keep it open for subsequent lemon law attempts to fix, need 5 different dates and mileages to be sure Our journey into Volvo dealer service was a nightmare from hell, rental cars that got flat tires, dealers who subbed windshield replacements to incompetent shops, service techs with greasy hands on the seats,
coffee spilt on the console, shoe scuff marks on the doors, on and on, service departments that would never pick up the phone...

The problem was sort of fixed at the end but not really, still some squeaks and leaks. We did our best to maintain the car as new, it even smelled new when we gave it up, and the factory rep could not believe how clean it was. This was my first new car, so it *can* be done-kept mint from new. What a sorry introduction to new cars.
Rape is a sorry introduction to sex.

Funny thing is, we bought it on the strength of our success and love with the '91 740; at only 110k it seems eternal; just imagine my wife bust a heater hose on the Bay Bridge in that car and kept on going for 10 miles and it DID NOT KILL the engine or blow the head gasket. The Volvo mechanic could not believe it. Maybe the best car I ever had, runs perfect over 30k later but it was not good for the far end of the car's life...

Well, the loan and the car are now gone and we sigh a bittersweet sigh of relief and regret. My wife has her eye on a wine red BMW 330ci cabrio; actually she wants a house first. Me, I would love to own the national car of Sweden, and it is true, I was there last year, a red 740 wagon with a huge line of cibie driving lights mounted headlight to headlight on the bumper. The proper Swedish family has a house, children, husband and wife, a dog and a red Volvo wagon.

And Camille? Well, she will be resold after rising resplendent on some lot, with a "Branded" title "This car was repurchased under lemon law buyback" disclosures which will haunt the car, and its resale value too, forever.
Lemon Law buyback cars are a tough sell, and they go cheap. I saw a C70 convertible on ebay and it had a lemon title, it shows up always and on CARFAX also. The seller was pleading that "the convertible top problems were fixed now"

The dealer who served as the site for the repurchase by Volvo cars NA would be given first chance to repurchase it, we were told, and if they did not want to buy it to resell (many don't) the car would be put on a truck and sent to a huge auction in Los Angeles. Could not drive it without dealer tags because we let the license sticker expire last month.

The process was tedious for us, attorney's letters and calls back and forth for months, recalculations of payoff over and over, mistakes made.

Our biggest mistake was plonking down $42k for a new Volvo, top of the line, and believing our new car would be perfect. We saw it with some of the white polystyrene plastic affixed to the car, it was FRESH off the boat from Port Hueneme Califthe night we first saw it.
At that point the new car smell of it was so strong it pushed you out of the car.