Hi All,

I'm currently driving a '93 850 GLT 2 litre 20 valve which has been a fantastic car although I find it very underpowered. I have been considering upgrading to a T5 for some time and now I guess that time has arrived. My company have said I should be driving a newer car (well, they pay a car allowance and I've always managed to avoid having to spend the lot on a car - I suppose it's not unreasonable). I'd always imagined that I'd get another 850 rather than the slightly newer (but still similar) S70. However, my company have said that my new car should be no older than 7 years and have no more than 100k on the clock. That rules out the 850 then.

The thing is, I don't want to spend a fortune as I don't really see the point in spending unneccessary cash on an expensive car when older ones can be just as reliable (and easier to do your own work on).

Now a S70 with under 100k a) doesn't come cheap and b) are few and far between.

Having said that, I've seen a 1997 S70 T5 CD with 80,000 on the clock and the asking price is just £4,500. OK, so this is half the mileage I was originally going to go for and about £2k more but I'm stuck with the rules. The catch? No service history! Apparently the car is a finance company reposession and no documentation was recovered. There is a V5 though because the finance company re-registered the car after reposession.

What are people's thoughts? My initial thought is that if the previous owner did not have the money to pay the finance they certainly would not have had the money to maintain the vehicle. Having said that, if the vehicle was reposessed then they can't have owned it for all that long because a repo can only take place easily if less than one third of the finance has been repayed.

The Turbo was replaced recently as it had siezed. Is this normal?

Thanks in advance folks.