My family (wife, son, etc.) have several Volvos, but I drive a 1989 Mercedes wagon (300te). It has reached a point that I do not want to put any more money into it. I have $12,000 to buy a car. I need a wagon. I want reliable, comfortable and a tad of luxury. I could put that into a 2000 E320 Mercedes (with about 125,000 miles- that's kinda the going price and milage)...OR what is GREAT in the Volvo line?
I must say that I have an S40 for my son, and I find it kinda 'cheap' inside. It does not insulate sound very well and the finishing touches are all hard plastic. This is what I want to avoid. Could go Japanese, but am concerned about longevity.

I think if you look hard enough, you can find an 05 V70.
They're reliable.
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Jake

12k can get you a pretty sweet ride in volvoland, with both comfort and a tad of luxury, but you might be a little disappointed on the reliability thing. Not that these cars aren't reliable, but there are many cars that are much MORE reliable.

Also I guess maybe it depends on how you define reliable.

If you're into MBs you're not afraid to spend some money on maintenance. Never having owned an MB I can't compare them, but I wouldn't allow the temptation to think the Volvo's maintenance will be cheap.

MBs are a lot of money for a pretty good reason most of the time.

What makes these cars worthwhile for most of us on here is that we can wrench on them ourselves. They have lots of little things to take care of, but we do them ourselves so it's not such a big deal. Also I guess a lot of us are driving cars that are 10+ years old, which adds to the number of things that need to be addressed.

We buy parts cheap on the internet and then spend all weekend taking care of them. (sometimes. Sometimes we go years without thinking too much about our cars as well.)

I have a couple of friends with 8-10 year old acuras and they are truly amazed at the build quality - they still feel nearly new. Do they have wagons though? I think Subaru would be your best bet for a wagon, and I think they make pretty great stuff - though admittedly I have no 'second hand' experience to relay for you.

The first generation S40s were indeed pretty junky. The newer (2005+) models are much much nicer, inside and out. Admittedly, the S40 is kind of Volvo's entry vehicle and I would expect it to not have as nice materials as the more expensive cars (70s and above), though I know they are considerably more 'entry level luxury' than they were previous to MY2005.

A quick local (atlantic Canada) search shows there's only a couple of Volvo wagons in the 10k-15k range:
- 170k 2001 XC70
- 80k 2006 XC70

I know our resident guru always says with AWD the newer the better. Also the V/XC70 line gets more upscale as we go up in years. The newest model (2008+ I think) is pretty fancy.



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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 190k+