I try not to bother others with this sort of "what if" but we've recently been reduced to a One car household, and the wife is losing patience with my extended hunt for the replacement.
I've been driving Volvos for the last 15 years or so, worked my way through models. 240, 760, a high mileage, indestructable Turbo 850 sedan with the Odom broken for 8 years or so at 146k
. Was mine, currently my wife's. Heaven help anyone who even suggests replacing it to her. She won't even let me fix the broken Odom gear, because if "the car knows how old it REALLY is, it'll fall apart!" 2 XC70's totaled, the '01 by a semi 2 months after repairing the valve body.
The 03 had a jeep cross the double yellow on a curve, and destroy the left hand side with my "alternate" mechanic inside, doing a test drive for a tune up, 2 months after having the Valve body done, the timing belt and water pump, and the dash rebuilt, :
I just can't win Oh well, Once more into the breach. Now i'm once again faced with the choices, and I fear my luck with transmissions has put me into a fit of indecision. Throw in a massive dollop of "Identity Theft" monkeywrenching my usual routine of "small loan, big down, lightly used car" and I'm doing this all out of pocket.
1) the "Safe" route.... I can drop back into the 850 wagons and play with $4-5k from the Insurance payout. ( IPD is only a 15 minute drive away, can get my ECU flashed on the spot) Current front-runner choices in this vein are a 96 850 R and a 97 850 T5 with 150k ish mileage. Both auto, but I would then have enough cash for the Manual conversion on either of them.
2) Pickup a Black 2000 V70R, one-owner carfax automatic with 130.000 miles. I'm on the fence on this one. already has check engine light on , and an Oil leak... bad lift on the rear gate. But this is the stuff the Dealer brought up to me on the spot as I started looking the car over, and (supposedly) is having fixed this week. Interior was in good shape, Engine was strong, Transmission was silky. No clunks while turning/backing. Wife fell in love with it on the spot, but it's faster than her 850 Turbo. If the dealer has taken care of the Throttle/Air mass (or whatever is throwing that code out atm) This wagon would leave me a valve-body's worth of repair money to hold in reserve for the "inevitable".
Obviously, I'm having my primary mechanics (Alamo Volvo, Portland Oregon) go over any prospective one, and they'll be doing the Stage Zero routine on the subject car before I head to IPD.
I don't hammer my cars all the time, I maintain regularly, I just like having the ability to avoid accidents by not being "there" when it happens.
Of course the other option, is to drive my wife insane as the ONLY driver in the house with 3 kids, while I save up for a few more months, and try to track down an 04/06 V70R manual. There's one '04 here for about 14k, One in Iowa for a disturbingly low 10k. 2000 miles a bit much for a test drive.
That's All, other than profuse thanks to the forum in general for a few years of information when I've had to fix the wife's 850 myself.
