I have a 98 v70 5 speed. Built in Belgium, 245,000 KM still solid, but......

The (original) clutch has started to slip, the rear portion of the exhaust needs replacing, the rear hatch won't stay up, without a stick, the passenger door won't open from the inside and I have started to smell that antifreeze smell in the cabin and the stabilizer links are starting to clunk.....also lately when starting the car, I hear what sounds like a sneeze, like compression air being forced out of somewhere.....I love this car, my wife loves the heated seats.....I think a sane person would crunch the numbers and say its gotta go......its a 15 year old car and it still passed its recent e test with room to spare.....what to do.....

 

If you can do the work your self and can order parts on line, I've always said, the cheapest car you can own is the one you are already driving. Getting a new car will no doubt be more reliable, but you'll be loosing large sums of money in depreciation and at the end you wind up owing an older car that needs repair at some point. Some of the repairs are fairly easy to do yourself, especially with great web forms like this and other Internet sources.
I'm sure you could make all the repairs to your car for under 1000 per year and it will last another 200,000. Buy a new car and it will depreciate much more than this.


You don't really own/know it until you can fix it.

 

Toronto eh? Hamilton here. The deciding factor for me has typically been when the rot sets in there's no point in trying to hold it together any longer and so drive it into the ground. But if the body is holding up then I'll tend to not feel like I'm pouring cash into a lost cause.

Interestingly, I joined this forum because I'm having second thoughts about pouring cash into the auto tranny - but if I had your 5 speed there'd be no hesitation personally (And in fact I'm starting some basic research on what fits what year and model wise as a 5 speed swap would suit me just fine, but is something that requires a donor). Clutch replacement doesn't appear to any trickier than the average Japanese transaxle at a casual glance looking down. The Haines/Chilton series of manuals, although fairly useless, tend to cover this type of job decently enough, and aftermarket pressure plates are a lot cheaper than you might expect. I'd stab a guess ~$140-170 for parts.

As well, when you've dug in deep you're in a good position to sort out additional odds and ends - like CV joints, ball joints, and even simply get a better eyeball on the things that you may not notice at a glance.

Of course if you're at the mercy of a shop, this is a different story entirely and the bucks will evaporate quickly.

Smaller hardware issues like your door generally tend to be cheap and simple once you go looking - busted plastic rod end clips and the like. The basic DIY manuals mentioned will cover interior trim removal if you're not familiar with it.

Sneezing? Doubt it's compression you're hearing if you've passed an Ontario Drive Clean.

On the other hand I'm almost a bit biased here .... Hmm, if there was a guy 50Km away wanting to dump his 5 speed V70...

 

Regrettably I'm at the mercy of a shop for this, no time and not enough resources for a job like this one.

Its in the shop as I write this and as I was steeling myself for, other issues have arisen. Namely the slave cylinder and some other seals and gaskets which are proving difficult to acquire, (partly because of the US holiday today) so it will be in the shop until Tuesday earliest.

It also needs CV boots and some other items, but I will tackle those myself afterward.....I'll begin the sad task of looking for a replacement for this so far trusty steed as although I am capable of many things, my time to do them is becoming more limited.

BTW, the body/chassis on this car is practically mint, a testament to Krown rust control which it has received every other year since I got it.

 

clutch is in and it took awhile to adjust to the new pedal feel, its as light as a feather.

new throw out bearing, rear main seal, bearing and out put shaft seal, new slave cylinder plus some other gaskets and seals. Next up the rear exhaust, cv boots, windshield, then good as new, for another 250,000 km