I have 4,000 - What Model Volvo Should I buy?

[Onaspring]

The pickings for Volvos are pretty slim around Detroit right now. I'm putting my search on hold and drivint the 25 year old beast for a few more months, save more money and look again.

Thanks for everyone's input, I appreciate it!

[dahammer]

If you go to pre 99 you're back to mostly Bosch electrics which kind of defeats the purpose. You also will lose coil on plug which is very reliable and gain cap, rotor and leads (antiquated and unreliable)

The S70s are great designs with very few issues and drive beautifully. If you must have a pre 99 just replace all the ignition parts upon purchase to avoid nasty surprises.

G'day Mike, not wanting to hijack this thread, but I have owned two 1998 S70's and I was always under the impression that this year was better than 1999 and 2000. I bought my first one about 5 years ago and have put about 60k miles and have been very pleased so far. Not trying to challenge you, just sincerely looking to learn more about a car for which I am borderline obsessed with.

As to the OP's search for a car, there are many S70's available in the Philadelphia area. In fact there is a 1998 one owner S70 manual with 173k miles for sale @ $1,900.

[precopster]

Nope 70,000 pleasure filled and fun kilometres in my 2000 V70 gives me pure bias 8-)8-)8-) Of course I've replaced the ETM and a couple of coil packs along the way (coil packs were Bosch of course!!! ) MAF is original Denso at 313,000kms.

You also lose the ridiculous hydraulic tensioner and tensioner pulley and get a mechanical one you simply replace cheaply at every belt change.

I'm not bashing the 98s or 850s but from an engineering viewpoint the 99s and 2000s are less complex and have most of the systems that still serve modern Volvos today.

I own a 98 V70R which I just mechanically rebuilt as well and have owned two 850s so I'm not as ignorant about pre 99s as some would believe.