Hi all!

I'm in a bind with needing to return to work again soon and not having much luck finding an old Toyota/Honda which everyone tends to recommend, because they get snatched up so fast and the markup is insane right now.

My neighbor is selling a 2002 V70 XC with 153,000 miles on it for $3500. It's been well maintained, but even still it's just got so many miles on it. I know repairs for these can be very expensive. My neighbor is very car savvy, so he was able to work on the car as needed and the 2 owners before him had it serviced at dealerships. It currently seems like it's in good shape, and my neighbor is cool with me taking it in for a PPI. I just don't know how much more life it has left and how much money I should expect to have set aside for repairs. I looked up transmission repair costs just to see what I could expect, and I was finding it was around $5k. Is that pretty accurate? I love the car, but I need something to get around in for a couple of years and hope to buy something better when I am (hopefully) in a much better position to do so in the future. If I'll be throwing all my savings into repairs, probably not a great idea. But what do y'all think? I'm in California, if that helps. (The gas cost is a bit of a concern for me as well.)

Thanks so much!

 

If you don't have a boatload of money to spend on this car - don't buy it.

Not trying to burst your bubble but - I owned a Volvo garage from 1980- 2018. I watched customers have to spend unbelievable amounts of money to repair their cars, especially after the 2001 generation.. I personally purchased several 2001-2002 v/xc70s - from customers because something big broke. Transmission, head gaskets (due to a broken radiator) - whatever it was, was very expensive retail wise. (most of the cars I paid $500 - $750 for, as long as the body and interior were perfect. If not - the cars went to the scrap yard) Even then the cars I purchased I had to spend more than the cars were worth to get them back to stage zero. That is me with parts at wholesale, and my labor was free. These were not customers that neglected their cars - they followed the service schedule and fixed mostly everything that broke - but after 8-10-12 now almost 20 years a lot of stuff was/is worn out, then their trans broke or the radiator broke -

If the car you are considering has had all this replaced recently I would consider it - for Edmunds.com value (which is much less than $3500)
1. cooling system - radiator and all hoses
2. Transmission (new replaced recently)
3. Front quality brand axles
4. Heater fan motor, new or reshimmed ac compressor. - Hopefully there is not a leak in the evaporator or condenser.
5. Brakes, new correctly installed rotors and pads - all 4 corners.
6. Front suspension work, control arms, struts - anything else that is worn out (and most of it is)
7. No self diagnostic codes (after driving for a few days because someone just erased them to sell the car!)

8. I did not look where you are from but if he car lived in a northern/salt based climate - you can expect everything to cost 1.5 times as much to fix and many more things to break and cost $$$$..

I agree with what you have heard - Buy a Toyota - @ 200,000 miles it will need an oil change and something minor - or hey buy a BMW - "bring more wallet"!