Thinking of purchasing 2008 XC70-Good or Bad Idea?

[heather2sch]

Thinking of purchasing an 08 Volvo XC70, 174K miles for daughters first car. Price $1000. I have had Volvos before-1988 240 was my first car many years ago & we drove mostly Volvo's in our family so I know they are safe & good cars. The 08 we are looking at had a check engine light on, took it to the mechanic we use for our cars to give us an idea of cost to fix. He said it will be the catalytic converter & that will cost a lot to fix, almost impossible to even get one. Picked the car back up today & the check engine light was not on (the info light was on I think due to a bulb out). I paid $100 for the look over and received the list of codes that did come up. No code about the catalytic converter-not sure if he THINKS one day that will be an issue or what.
The codes that did show up-P0442, P0128, P06162 seem like the majors one with B10387, B103387, B108587, B10884A listed for climate control & U001000 & U001088 for power seat & BID7812 for the audio. All the codes other than the "P" ones seem to be easy while the P ones will be the ones that will cause the most $ to fix & inspection issues (we are in NY state).
Current owner did state that there is a few issues like hatch is weird but you can get a hang of it, the AC & heat will not work at same time & need to be flipped from one to the other based 2 times a year, the exhaust has been worked on but never gotten quite right & a little loud.
So the question is-$1000 for this car? worth it? The body & inside are in great shape. New brakes & tires recently. So unsure what to do. We are NOT car people and cannot fix issues that arise, other than minor ones that I can fix using you tube. Any advise would be great! Thanks-a mom wanting to get her daughter her 1st car, a safe one!

[matthew1]

Keep looking. Sounds like a rat’s nest of problems.

[Krons]

If you aren’t willing to tackle yourself I’d pass. Potential great buy for a DIY buyer but not if you plan to use a mechanic.

[scot850]

For the cat problem. What is the code/message? Are you getting a cat low efficiency message on the dash? If so have the bolts checked from the turbo to cat checked. They come loose and even fall out causing an air leak.

The other issues are possibly small or big depending on how much you are wanting to spend. If you are paying someone else to do the repairs, it gets expensive fast. I always tell potential new owners to have $3-4000 set aside for catching up servicing that has not been done and issues the car will have. I am working on an 02 XC70 for a friends son and although the car runs, it probably has $3000 in parts needed to fix it. The engine warning issues alone could have been huge, but as I have given free labor to it it has only been about $300 in total so far as I pulled used parts from the junkyard.

The positive, is with a low starting price, you are potentially ending up with a car costing $3-5000 which could last the college years.

Tailgate issues on these cars are not uncommon. The latch is an issue.

Neil.