Someone from out of town is offering to sell me what looks like a very nice 945. Spotless interior, very clean engine, no rust. About 100k miles. He wants over $6k for it though, is that a bit high?

Here's a really nice one on eBay for $5500 or best offer. Nice wagons don't come around too often. Still $5500 is too high. MAYBE $4500 max if you really had to have it. $6000 is over the top.

That is what I paid in 2002 for a 95 normally aspirated wagon with 80k, white with gray cloth. Good deal at the time but now, 9 years later? The best part, manual seats and no sunroof.

Tom

"Spotless interior, very clean engine, no rust."

Not to nit-pick but a very clean engine can mean more than one thing...either the owner is meticulous about cleaning it or he just had it detailed for sale. The cleanliness of the engine is not really a quality factor some much and aesthetic (and nice is you are working it).

All the things you list are nice but for that money, you need to know what maint has already be done. As Chris said, at 15 years old many things are past their service life even if the car had 30K miles.

Depending on where you live the $3500 Chris listed is probably realistic as a max. Certain markets value the 240's more but I think most markets see 7/9-series as just old cars (no cult following).

A 940 wagon with a non-turbo motor would be at the top of my shopping list, but my limit for any car would be about $3K lower than what is being asked.

Mike

Thanks to both of you for confirming my suspicion, that the asking price of this 945 is way out to lunch!

Yesterday, an old-lady-driven garage-find 91 240 with only 60,000 miles sold locally for around $3500. Too bad it wasn't a wagon or I would have been all over that one!

I'll keep looking. Cheers!

Thought you might find amusing what someone else is asking for an older 240 with 40,000 miles :-)
http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-cars-trucks-1990-Volvo-240-Sedan-W0QQAdIdZ311176826

you know, the more I think about buying a car; let's see, I want a reliable safe car I can work on myself, that's roomy and comfortable, nice looking, and I need it to last oh,... 100-150K. I can get one of those at a dealer, say a nice Audi, $30,000 but I can't work on it; or a Honda, ooopsie, it'll fold like an accordian, or a Toy, they last, damn they are ugly but hey; and everything is well over 25k.

hmmm; what to do, what to do...

Caution: Personal opinion about to be spewed forth....

The reality is that regardless of how well the car was taken care of, it's still a 15+ year old car. Many things fail as a result of age rather than mileage. I think the current owner will be waiting forever to see $6000.

$3500 absolute max for the best of the best, and that's a $500 increase over what I would have said a few months ago.