'96 850 wagon: Input on pricing please

[trg]

Car is sold - one of the local Volvo dealer techs was very excited to get it, especially after finding that it's just as clean under the hood and that *everything* on the car works well.

[Redneck]

Are you serious? How much did you get for it?

A tech wouldn't buy a car because it was clean under the hood. That is what the public would do.

At reported 300K miles, maybe more (most odometers fail around 120K miles) everything is either failing or about to fail. He will be fixing it every weekend.

[trg]

With someone in our family or our neighbor's family (we've passed them back and forth) having owned half a dozen Volvos that have lasted until anywhere from 370,000 to about 840,000 miles without major rebuilds or overhauls, I'd disagree.

After the tech went over the car ("clean" being shorthand for "everything is in good repair and functions well," for you literalists), jump started it and drove it a bit, and tested/tried all the mechanical and electrical things he could, I suspect he'd disagree as well. He and my sister are going to work out title transfer and payment.

[erikv11]

Clean or not, a tech bought a non-turbo 850 with MCC???

Maybe he wants to yank the manual transmission to swap into a turbo car.

I think it is a beautiful car, great to know it went to someone who knows what to do with it. A tech is the perfect buyer for this car.

[rspi]

+1 ^^^

I am with RedNeck, you should tell us the agreed upon price, since we responded to your LONG thread and gave our opinions.

[tryingbe]

+1 ^^^

I am with RedNeck, you should tell us the agreed upon price, since we responded to your LONG thread and gave our opinions.

That's the business between to OP and his buyer.

[Redneck]

With someone in our family or our neighbor's family (we've passed them back and forth) having owned half a dozen Volvos that have lasted until anywhere from 370,000 to about 840,000 miles without major rebuilds or overhauls, I'd disagree.

After the tech went over the car ("clean" being shorthand for "everything is in good repair and functions well," for you literalists), jump started it and drove it a bit, and tested/tried all the mechanical and electrical things he could, I suspect he'd disagree as well. He and my sister are going to work out title transfer and payment.

No. That is not possible. In order to reach such mileage the car goes through continuous part replacement cycles. By the time it has 300K miles, most of its parts have been replaced. You can disagree all you want. I work on this car with my own hands and see things with my own eyes. I can tell the life span for all major parts in the Volvo. They last long, but they need to be replaced before they fail not after.

After 150K miles Volvos require part replacements progressively one by one due to their end-of-life. By the time the car reaches 250K-300K miles, most of the parts have been replaced. If not, they are about to fail and will be replaced soon. When these cars reach 300K miles without any work done to it besides oil changes they are junk and need to be rebuilt otherwise they are unreliable and potentially unsafe to you and anyone else on the road.

Of course, many people don't replace old parts and wait until they fail. I always see them on the side of the road with open hood staring at the engine. I don't feel sorry for them. It is quite a work to research and anticipate potential issues and replace aging components before they fail and make you stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I think that car went straight to a junk yard. No tech in his right mind would buy that. That car was from Chicago with salty roads. There must have been rust on the subframe too.

Volvos with 200K are a good buy for around $1000 to hold on to them until they reach 300K, after that there is no reason to keep it for much longer because one will need to rebuild it again shortly. You can get a newer model for $1000 with 200K mileage.

[tryingbe]