Best over-all V70 Estate version?

Hi All, Bearing in mind the number of Volvo experts and owners on this group would it be possible please to recommend a V70 estate version to suit me.

I have a 1988 760GLE auto which will need replacing soon and I will have about GB£2/3000 to spend. I do only about 5,000 miles per year and the car will not be worked hard as it's only real need is to carry flat screen TV's in the rear and my 6ft 4inches in the front.

Petrol or diesel engine, what size, turbo, etc, are there any to avoid? How quiet are the diesels, are the diesels that much more economical in

90% town use [although I imagine all are much better than my present 17/20mpg]?

I have now got so used to my auto gearbox that my left foot is now instinctively the brake one so I would really like to stick to an auto, what of the Geartronics, people seem to either love or hate them? Do they really "learn" your driving style or is that a myth?

I am rather tempted by the ex police T5 versions available from

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they might be a bit higher mileage but are presumably maintained to the hilt, does anyone have any experience of them please?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated, many thanks, Bob Green, UK.

Reply to
R G Green
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No real answers, but a few disjointed thoughts . . .

  1. Never *EVER* consider buying an ex-police car. When the police have finished with it, it will be totally *shot*!
  2. How important is manoeuvrability? Your current rear wheel drive car will have an infinitely smaller turning circle than any of the front wheel drive models. FWD limits the wheel turning angle anyway, and the progressively wider - lower profile - tyres used on later models limits it even more. The turning circle on my 1999 V70 Series 1 (850 shape) was poor but just about acceptable. My current car - a 2007 V70 Series 2 (S80 platform - not the latest shape) is *dire*. Reversing into a space in a supermarket car-park is *embarrassing* - frequently requiring several shunts. I've no experience of the later Series 3 V70's - but I doubt that they're any better, and I don't think that any of those will be within your budget.
  3. If manoeuvrability *is* important, you might still find a decent late model rear wheel drive car - they were made (I think) right up until the end of the last century.
  4. Both of my V70's have been diesels. The first one had an Audi
5-cylinder 2.5 litre engine, and the current one has Volvo's own D5 2.4 litre 185PS jobbie. Some of the early Series 2 cars also used the Audi engine - and may be relevant to your price range.

The Volvo engine is a lot more powerful, and flexible - and quieter. It's also a fair bit more economical on a long motorway run - I can get over 45 MPG driving from the Midlands to Scotland - and I don't hang about(!) - whereas the previous car struggled to achieve 40. Having said that, the current car isn't very good around town - achieving only about

27MPG according to its trip computer. The Audi-engined car was better around town - probably turning in 32-35 MPG - although it didn't have a trip computer, so less easy to measure.
  1. It's worth looking at recently completed sales on Ebay to see the sorts of car which you might get in your price range. If you find something you like the look of, come back here - and I'm sure you'll find someone with experience of something very similar.
  2. An automatic would not be my choice. They use a lot more fuel (and have higher emissions) than equivalent manuals - and are very expensive to fix when (and not if) they go wrong.

Hope that helps!

Reply to
Roger Mills

I've had a 760, an 850, still have a V70 cross country and had and have resold an xc70. The most nimble of those cars was the 760, followed by the 850.

One thing I found that really surprised me a bit: the 2.4litre xc70 turned out to be more economical in this hilly country here than the 2.0 litre 850, by about 0.5-1 litres/100km despite being 4wd.

On the whole, I enjoyed driving the 850 more than the others. The feedback from the road is better than the crossovers. It feels like it has more acceleration. I got into the crossover models because they're higher off the ground, which is nice on the gravel roads I drive at times, but first and foremost they are easier on knees that are painfully wearing out. Getting in and out of the 850 had me groaning at times, because it's 3" closer to the ground. But the crossovers feel somewhat squishy in the steering and feedback to me. And they do have a fairly big turning circle. Still, we don't have the parking problems in New Zealand that you might encounter in Europe.

Each and any of these Volvo wagons are/were wonderful for loading something like flatscreen tvs into. Or whiteware. Or 3 working border collies.

I now drive a diesel VW Passat Alltrack most of the time - it's a lot, and I mean a LOT more economical, both my wife and I agree that it's a shipload more fun to drive, believe it or not (we did NOT expect that of a usually pretty pedestrian VW) - we're both pretty hard drivers despite our age. The VW gives me 6.6 - 6.9 litre/100km where the Volvos were around the 9.5-10.5 mark. The feedback from the road is a lot better than the crossover Volvos. But in terms of loading area those 850-XC70 Volvos have it all over the VW. Looking at the latest models' pictures, I dare say they may no longer do so since they seem to have done away with the box-shape.

I am not very enthusiastic about the post-2000 Volvos. The repair bills have been shocking. The mechanical failure rate has been shocking. Maybe the local Volvo shop is a bunch of sharks, but maybe it's also due to Ford introducing this high failure rate ... in any case, that's what had me move away from Volvos. Because to my mind it's no longer the epitome of 'reliable'. Maybe things will improve again, but ... I just don't know. We're about to retire the V70 Cross Country as well, after sinking 3 grand into "repairs" it now shudders when accelerating. They've stuffed it up yet again.

-P.

Reply to
Peter Huebner

Thank you both for your replies and thoughts. Apologies for my lack of replying but it's been a bit hectic lately. I think you have almost convinced me to give V70's a miss. My other thoughts were also a Passat or what I really fancy is a BWM

530i or D estate as I do like my rear wheel drive and the parking in my road here is very congested, some of my getting into spaces attempts have brought applause from spectators who cannot understand how such an old car can do that? On the bright side it's just got another year's MOT with only a track rod end and a gaiter needing doing so my search for that BMW will not be so pressing for a while either. Many thanks, Bob.
Reply to
R G Green

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