At 41, I am ashamed to admit I am buying my first car and need advice.
Had settled on a 1990 240 wagon(kinda high miles, but affordable), but when I went back today for a second test drive - a certain RED sedan caught my eye.The dealer had just gotten it in and suggested I take it out...how could I refuse!?! This thing is gorgeous - not a speck of rust (more on that later) and all the bells & whistles. "Only" 175,282 miles on it. And - it just flys... Asking price $5,200. "None Known" under both mechanical defects and damage. With my trade-in, tax & title the final cost will be $4,959. A little outside my budget, but I think I could probably swing it with a co-signer. Salesman told me that it belonged to a Bowdoin College student and that both her parents also drove volvos and that they had kept them maintained at Volvo dealers right on schedule.
I don't know if I had a mid-life crisis right there and then but I felt that this was the car for me. Until today, I was dead-set on having a wagon for the sake of the kids and the dog...but this car just spoke to me.
Got home and jumped on Carfax...and discovered that in 2000, it had been in an accident involving another car AND a tree. But, it was not salvaged. I think this explains why there does not appear to be any rust...the whole thing has probably been repainted.
Well, before I left the dealer, I had him prepare me a buyers order so that I could approach the bank for a loan on Tuesday...
After reading the Carfax report though...something started to nag away at me until I decided to call the previous owners.
Spoke to the mother (who was VERY nice) Seems she sold the car to the dealer for just $2,400 - AND this was after they had just sunk $1,100 into it so that it could be driven to his place. She said it was for the entire "control unit"...But even worse than this was that she started off by telling me that, "reliable is NOT the word that comes to mind" when describing this car. About 2-3 years ago they put in a brand new transmission...among a host of many other repairs over the past couple of years. She verified that they had it serviced at the appropriate times. She did not even want her daughter to drive back to Massachusetts with this car after the "control unit" was replaced. She just did not trust it. As I mentioned, the car looks really hot...and she advised that many of their friends offered to buy it off them, but she said she couldn't do that to a friend. She told me that almost everything in the engine had been replaced by NEW volvo parts because the dealers had told them that because the car was so old you couldn't get aftermarket or good used parts.
Okay, Okay, it's like 2:30 in the morning so...long story short...I AM having MY volvo guy look at it on Thursday...and I plan to tell him all that I know...but what do you folks have to say? In my heart, I think I already know...but what if this is it? What if this last repair was the clincher that solved all the other problems?
Unfortunately, as a divorcee with 2 kids - I live paycheck to paycheck and want to make an informed decision.
Thanks for reading all the way through this and sharing your advice.
JM
