I am nearing the end of the 3 year lease on my 2000 S80. To date, it has been a very reliable car and I am think about buying it at lease termination. My only concerns is that it goes through light bulbs (specifically front headlights). In two and half years, I must have gone through 6 or 8 bulbs. Yeah, I've heard the DRL line ... however, never had that occur in my other DRL equipped cars.

Question: should I be concerned with the electrical system of the car and NOT purchase an otherwise reliable car? Or do the light bulbs have that low of a lifespan. I have about 30,000 miles on the car.

Hi,

Reading this, I'm very surprised to hear of peoples experience. I leased a 1999 s80 2.9, the lease was to expire in April. The residual was 23000. I called my dealer back in December to find out what it would cost to buyout, and when would be good to do so. Dealer came back with a price of 22000 and change (including my remaining payments). That was on a Monday. By Thursday, I bought my car for 16800. Apparently the auctions were not going well, and Volvo was more than happy to negotiate a buyout. My car has about 90k miles.

Just figured I'd share my experience.

- hywel

If this is your only problem then you're in luck. This is a fairly well known issue (I'm guessing you replaced these headlights yourself or if you had the dealer do it you didn't raise enough of a stink about it) and it has an easy fix. There's a newer headlight wiring harness thats used to fix this problem. It's a quick stop at the dealer and those who used to have this problem and have had this fix seem to be satisfied as I haven't seen much repeat at all.

Good luck.

-rollie

The days of negotiation at lease end are almost over. I remember a time when you could buy your car from the leasing company for below wholesale at the end of the lease. However, today, most leasing companies and probably Volvo too purchases a leasing stop loss type of insurance on your lease...meaning that if your contract says that at the end of the lease, the car's worth "X" amount of dollars, that's what they're going to get from you if you want to buy it plus any charge for over mileage, excess wear and tear and all the other BS. If they don't get that price from you, then the insurance kicks in and pays the leasing company for the difference of what you actually paid for the car to purchase it from the leasing company and the end of lease purchase price that was on written on your contract. Naturally, the more they use the insurance by selling their cars at discounts, the higher their premiums will be, so most leasing companies just will stick it to you at the end of the lease instead of being stuck by the insurance company for more premiums. This protects the leasing company from "losing" money on your deal at the end of the lease and gives them maximum return on their investment.

Regarding the headlamps.....I had the same problem with my car on both the H7 headlight bulbs and the H1 foglamp bulbs. They just kept burning out. I finally was told to buy better lamps for my car from a buddy I have in Europe, so I did. I got the Philips Vision Plus lamps from http://www.powerbulbs.com/. They're in the UK, but deliver via international mail express....they're very good, very reliable. The Osram Silver Star bulbs are also great and available there too. Anyway, the bulbs have lasted me for over 2 years not and I have not had a burn-out. Just remember, that when you do replace them, NEVER, EVER touch the glass area on the bulb as you're handling the bulb, because the heat in combination with your hand's fingerprint will cause the bulb to burst. Not a good thing. Anyway, if you keep the car, get the better bulbs. You'll need 4 H7 bulbs for the headlights and 2 H1 bulbs for the fogs if you've got fog lamps. What Volvo sells an what you get at auto parts stores are crappy bulbs and they don't last long. Get the good stuff and you're problems will be resolved. As a bonus, these bulbs give you 50% more light that the regular H7 and H1 bulbs....it's nice white light...not that blue tinged bulb you see around town on the ricer's cars...these are good lamps.

Anyway, I've been long-winded...but that's my 50 cents.

If bulbs are your only concern, why would you care. Look at the problems reported with $700 module replacements and hookup to dealers VADIS system to detect a problem. I would try for a very low price and mention the many problems the 99 to 2000 have experienced, mentioning that the '01 is the only year to see some reliability relief reported. Add any personal problems you have experienced. A good price would be $18K or close. Watch them jump on it.

Nobody "jumping on" my offer. I'm at end of lease and willing to buy but dealer says 27k. I have 55,000 miles on it and would pay 17 but there's no negotiating going on here - dealer only wants to sell me someone else's 00. I think I'll be happy to get out of Volvo's clutches. Adios all! Long time before I come back to one of these pigs.

55k on a 2000? you high milage killed your car. When you turn you car back in at the end of the lease, if it is a volvo lease they will charge back for excessive mileage and any repairs that needed to be done to the car.



as for the other volvo owner concerned about bulb failure. It happens on all of the other model lines that volvo has. As for a DRL update to make the headlights run at a lower power, its called recall 101b. I think its only on 98-00 s/v/c70's.

No shit, Dick Tracy!!!
Are you saying 55k is the max life of an S80?
You could be right.

With proper care there's no reason why a S80 wouldn't last for several thousand miles. The question is whether it will require an extremely deep pocket or an average one for a Euro lux sedan?

I think what the prior poster was saying was that high miles on a leased car (and 55k is a bit high for anything other than a '99 or very early '00) hurts the resale value (as it does for an owned car) in addition to the fact that you have to pay a substantial penalty if you turn the car in instead of selling it. Either way he'll be out some money as the residual value of the car is significantly affected by high mileage.

I've got a T6 with almost 61k miles on it and can appreciate this issue first hand. I checked some of the online used car sites for prices and looked at the NADA guide. While I see some people looking for prices around NADA guide levels, the majority are asking for a significantly lower price.

I'll probably hold onto mine a bit longer than I had planned but may part with it in a year or so when the upgraded S80 (4C, bi-xenons, and V8 or AWD) debuts.

Thanks.

-rollie

Thank you, rollie. I've noticed over the years that your posts consistently make a whole lot of sense. You provide some excellent insight.