I agree with this completely.

I just got one of these early AWD cars and I love the car but it's been a real headache. The AWD stuff that everyone told me would go bad went bad for me:

- bevel gear : http://www.brickboard.com/AWD/volvo/1346623/V70/front_end_whine.html
- AWD fuel pump : http://www.brickboard.com/AWD/volvo/1360418/V70/help_start.html

plus I've lots of the regular 'second hand old car' stuff to deal with that I expected:
- timing belt
- PCV system : http://www.brickboard.com/AWD/volvo/1325789/V70/oil_leak_help.html
http://www.brickboard.com/AWD/volvo/1326366/V70/oil_leak_2_help.html
- frozen caliper
- tailgate interior

jeez I could go on and I've only had the car since last September. Every job I listed up there was a full day or more of work for me. If I had more sense or more money someone else would be doing it for me.

Again I love this car but I would not recommend this car to someone who was not a serious DIYer and who had any better options.

Taking on someone else's old car is a real pain because it always takes a year or more to work through all the bullshit they left for you and get the car into trustworthy shape.

Plus these cars are getting old and things are failing. Like take my fuel pump for example - you can't really blame the poor thing for dying after 200k miles and almost 12 years of service. It's just a small little electric motor that's moved a whole pile of fluid over it's lifetime. But it had to die sometime, and it died on me and I had to fix it. I bet a dealer would get close to $2000 for this job. I did it the DIY/shadetree way and jimmied and rigged and got it done pretty cheap and pretty fast, but I wouldn't say I'd recommend it to anyone.


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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 195k+