Why do undamaged P80s get junked?

[FireFox31]

Why do undamaged P80s wind up in junkyards? I wonder this every time I see one, which is quite often as I browse car-part.com looking for things. Maybe 5% of P80s I see were actually in an accident.

Do people give up on them? Maybe they had an ECM problem, ABS grinding, or smoke from PCV. Their mechanic gave the owner a massive repair quote or simply didn't know how to fix the problem.

I've seen some with nicely maintained interiors, under 150k miles, clean engine bays. What went so wrong that the car wasn't sold to an enthusiast or brave amateur DIY?

I'm rescuing Geronimo which had every moderate problem you could imagine. With maybe $3000 of new and used parts and a ton of my amateur DIY repair time, I bet it can run for a long time. That's less than buying a used car and I feel it's a sturdy platform. Surely other P80s in junkyards are in better shape than Geronimo, yet there they are, destined to get picked over and then shredded.

Are these cars truly not worth saving? Are we all silly for fixing them up?

[abscate]

“Their mechanic gave the owner a massive repair quote or simply didn't know how to fix the problem.”

Pretty much the path for most of the un-pranged cars in the junkyards

[Chuck W]

The average person has no clue how to fix/maintain a vehicle and relies on a "mechanic" to deal with any problems. To most, cars are a throwaway appliance.

Mechanics work on cars for money. Working on older cars doesn't make money.

[BlackBart]

These guys above have it exactly. If I have a favorite old drill worth $50 on Craigslist and it quits, I would pay the $80 to fix it and have a good drill for another 10 years. A normal person will buy the new $200 drill.

[Krons]

My hypothesis is it seems owners repairing their own cars is becoming less and less common. I’ve been surprised the last few years buying used cars the small stuff that isn’t fixed (simple <$100 items). Add to that lack of cleaning, conditioning leather, etc.

Folks on here are car people and most take pride in our vehicles. Volvos add the issue that dealership repairs are very expensive, and some independent shops won’t work on them. I’m thankful the DIY community for Volvos is great.

At least where I live 20 year old cars aren’t seen much on the road, which is surprising to me as expensive new cars have gotten.

[BlackBart]

A couple of neighbors make fun of me and my old Volvos, while they drive shiny appliances. I want to say, Good Luck with your generic POS, while I continue to use this nice old machine with some character.

[scot850]

I good example is my friends I have written about on the P2 forum who bought a 06 P2 S60 AWD 2.5T from a former colleague which was supposedly in good condition with less than 125k miles. It turned out to have a few 'issues' which when quoted by a non specialist repair shop was $5000 CDN for a car they paid $4800 for!

The issues were the PCV needed serviced ($1300) which was actually only a leaking aftermarket top PCV hose and oil filler cap seal. Total cost of parts was about $60 CDN and about 2 hours of mine and my friends time.

2nd issue was a leaking radiator. Again about $1400 or so. It has very slight leak, but the real issue was the failed torque rods and crank pulley engine mount moving and straining on the RH end of the radiator causing it to weep. We replaced the mounts and could have done the radiator, but the young owner decided to run the car with the very small leakage so he save up for a new radiator. Car is still running as is a year later. Not my recommendation, but we could have still done the repair for less than $800 CDN including the full set of mounts and a radiator if we had done the radiator.

Last issue was broken mount peg on the parking brakes that took out the rear hub on one side. Known issue, and now a replacement can be bought from various places including NAPA and Skandix. This is the only job I let the repair shop do as moving the car to my house would cost a lot and the hub bearing and rotor and brakes were all damaged. The fix was about $1300 including parts.

The biggest part was the cost of marked up parts prices and labor costs. The quoted prices were not out of order based on hours to do the work. That is why cars end up in the junkyard. People see quotes like that and go dump the car and get something newer (but not always any better unless brand new with warranty).

It is only enthusiasts, as others have mentioned, or those who can do their own repairs that would keep a car like that on the road.

Neil.

[BlackBart]

I have a neighbor - who is a university professor BTW - who drives rusted old Camry's and Corolla's. I don't think he even changes the oil, just drives them until they're trash. A colleague of his sold him his 2006 XC70 when he went overseas. Black, looks just like mine.

It stumbled and quit on the pass, he limped it home. A know-nothing mechanic gave him misleading information. I think he just disdained having a "nice" car and went out of his way to have some reason to get rid of it. He offered it to me for $500, the money the tow company would give him for salvage. I don't have space to time or experience to find an electronics problem, so I told him it's likely a simple thing or a $1200 electronics board, just find someone to do some diagnostics.

I saw a wrecker come take it away. He bought another rusty Toyota.

[FireFox31]

Me rescuing Geronimo is an experiment in keeping a P80 going. Once it's at stage 0, I'll sell it, offering the buyer to have me do the maintenance on it. I hope to find someone who won't treat it like a beater, and the price won't suggest it is which will likely scare buyers away. Once my green V70 is at stage 0, I'll sell it back to its previous owner who loved it, so that's another one in good hands.

If I have a favorite old drill worth $50 on Craigslist and it quits, I would pay the $80 to fix it and have a good drill for another 10 years. A normal person will buy the new $200 drill.

I feel this same way about old Volvos. I'm also facing this with my Schumacher battery charger (charge % indicator is off) and OBD2 code reader (screen just died). However, I learned a lesson against repairing an expensive copier at my work. I fixed one thing, than another and another broke. Perhaps it was built to be disposable, so I should have discarded it at the first problem. I don't feel that P80s were built to be disposable.

At least where I live 20 year old cars aren’t seen much on the road, which is surprising to me as expensive new cars have gotten.

Even aside from the dollar cost, there's a huge expense of energy, materials, waste, and other environmental impacts from creating a new car. It seems much less costly on a global scale to repair than to replace. $3,000 of individual parts must be less impactful than $60,000 of new car.

A couple of neighbors make fun of me and my old Volvos, while they drive shiny appliances. I want to say, Good Luck with your generic POS, while I continue to use this nice old machine with some character.

I always remember abscate's quote that his daughter's friends began by snickering at her quirky old car, then they were jealous how she had no big car payment like they did. I love driving a car which is at the end of its depreciation. Please, put on as many miles as possible!

[BlackBart]

Me rescuing Geronimo is an experiment in keeping a P80 going. Once it's at stage 0, I'll sell it, offering the buyer to have me do the maintenance on it.

At $100/hour? Or donated time?