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Without having ever owned one of the P2 cars I would like to agree with SBranscom.
If the trans works ok now (and you can test that out with a good long HOT test drive - FUN!) it'll probably be fine for a long time to come if you flush the fluid straight away after you buy it. I would recommend doing a full fluid flush now and then again in ~10k miles/1 year, then every 50k miles after that. Do it twice straight away to clean everything up in there as best you can. I think the 5 speed trans takes the magical 3309 fluid, and it'll probably cost you on the order of $150-$200 in fluid to do one flush, but it is well worth it.
The ETM is also a known solve-able issue. Nothing to be scared of. There is a company called XeMoDex (or something like that - do some searching around on this board) that will sell you a replacement unit that will (likely) never wear out. It think it's around $500. And if the car is working okay right now then you can delay that expense indefinitely until it starts to act up.
That said there are a lot of folks who recommend against the 2001 simply because of the 'year 1' quibbles/probs, and I think they probably have a valid argument.
I think a little maintenance would help these cars out a lot. If you like it, and you're okay to spend a couple of hundred dollars and a few weekends changing ALL the fluids (coolant with new t-stat and gasket, trans fluid, brake fluid with full bleed at every wheel, power steering fluid) you could probably make a nice car out of it.
As others have suggested maintenance history is a major plus. You want to know when the timing belt was done/is due esp.
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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+
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