2000 V70 Avalanche of repairs, is this normal?

[jblackburn]

My 95 850 turbo have 333540 miles on it, but I keep up the maintenance.

I just put over $2000 into it, not counting labor since I do the work.

Wow.

[precopster]

I bought my Denso 2000 V70 with 156k miles (252k kms) and it already had extensive engine work, a replaced ETM (of course) & new tailgate struts.

Unfortunately not much else was done and the car promptly started falling apart from there (read my maintenance log link in the previous post)

I didn't mind as the car cost around $1, 100 including the transport fee from interstate 2.5 years ago. I'm still struggling with the a/c after replacing evaporator and compressor (keeps losing charge)
Rear shocks and mounts are due (I'm considering Sensens) Also the valve body is about to get a kit which is about 8 hrs work)

If these cars didn't drive so darn well and have one of the best safety records on the market I don't think any of us would persist with them and we would all just give up & buy a Camry or Accord

[abscate]

Back to the Op

Spending total of 6000 usd for 20k miles or 30 cpm

IRS gives you 50 cpm, so you are ahead of the game!

[precopster]

Is there an OP? Darn near forgot

What's an IRS. I know it's not independant rear suspension in this case.

[abscate]

Tax man. Inland revenue for you maybe??

[precopster]

ATO over here. Australian tax office. They do a sterling job too

[scot850]

I try to avoid adding up what our 2 older V70's (98 and 00) have cost. Bad news is my wife has. Last year the 98 cost us approx. $6500 in repairs, and 00 nearer $10000. Does it make sense? Clearly not!
My cars are an (expensive) hobby. The 98 runs well with 270,000km on it as does to 00 with same mileage, but at some point I will pull the plug and let someone take over. Most of the expenses happened at the 150,000 mile (240,000km) age range on the 98, and 160,000 mile on the 00.

I derive a great deal of satisfaction from figuring out the issues (with the help of this and other forums) and also by detective work when I can't get help. I'm a retired engineer so this helps keep me busy, but at some point one of the 2 older cars will have to go (can't justify 4 cars and 3 drivers). Someone will get a good car that will run for a long time as I am the crazy person that has put the money into it. But then I think about how much depreciation I take on our newer cars v's the low miles we do and I can make some sense/justification. The older cars don't really depreciate much, so it is a balance of when I am spending more on maintenance than depreciation it is time for a car to go.

In fairness to the 98, it gets hacked around the city, left in parking lots, my son now drives it as his first car and the last time I spent a lot of money on it was 4 years ago when we bought it. Spent about $3000 then, so average about $1000/year, which is a lot less than hit the first owner of the Kia Optima my wife just bought took. Car cost about $36,500 CDN 2 years and 16,000 miles ago. We just paid $20,000 for it!

Now I don't feel so bad about the cost of the old Volvo's!

I've owned many Volvos in the last 40 years, and there is something about them that gets under your skin, and most of us that love them probably spend more on them than makes sense, but we just enjoy driving them.

Hopefully you are over the worst and get a few years of lower maintenance now.

Neil.

[abscate]

ATO over here. Australian tax office. They do a sterling job too

this is a Volvo site, not Sterling...

Ill bet they get their pound of flesh nonetheless

[mtd240]

OP: Those items are normal wear/tear. Learn to do the work yourself to save money. I have found one of the best ways to avoid breakdowns/broken parts/continuous repair bills is to "replace everything while you're there". Nothing ridiculous (not all of the bolts/nuts/etc). Example: When I needed to replace the strut mounts, I was at 125k on the original equipment. Ball joint and tie rod boots were starting to crack, control arm bushings were cracking, struts were weak, and end links weren't tight like new. They might have lasted another 10-15k. But, I replaced ALL of it - and in 125k miles I will do ALL of it again. It is a bit more expensive up front, but it really does pay off in reliability and vehicle uptime. Doing it yourself doesn't "save on labor" - the labor is being done either way, and DIY-ers take 2x longer to do work than a professional - replace everything you take off (within reason).

This is coming from someone who plans to keep both Volvos for several hundred thousand more miles. Some only keep cars for a short while - this mindset is not for them!

Note that an automotive "end of life" is "scheduled" (engineered) to occur around 150k miles. Anything is fair game for failure at that point - hence why it is often better to buy a car with ~180k miles rather than 140k - the owner already did all the spending for ya

Excuse me in advance, and I don't mean to be rude, but I think you don't know what you are talking about.

I am a mechanical engineer, working as a consultant in the auto industry - but that doesn't necessarily make me the most knowledgeable guy (no sarcasm intended) - this is just a conjecture. I do know that designing a car that lasts "forever" isn't near as challenging as designing a car that lasts exactly the length of time an owner wants to drive it. A car that lasts forever would be absurdly expensive, so that isn't an option. Since they can't predict how long each person will keep their car, the OEMs average it out and pick an end-of-life (EOL) to design around. From my experience fixing all sorts of cars (and reading of others' experiences), I estimate that EOL to be 150k.

The engineer's job, as a "trade-off specialist", is to figure out how to make the car cheap enough to sell, while making it durable enough to last until the EOL. If they could design every car to completely fall apart (safely, somehow) at EOL, then they did their job well. Modern automotive engineers don't design with "forever" in mind.

This whole mindset becomes apparent when they factory fill cars with "lifetime" fluids. There is no way the "lifetime" transmission fluid in the M47 in my 240 was designed to last 350,000 miles. I change it "every 150k", or, "every lifetime" .


Just a thought.