Possibly in the market for a new DD. Getting rid of my Jeep Grand Cherokee.

stipulation are pretty much AWD, reliable, auto tranny, and decent Fuel mileage (15+ city is Decent IMO) Wife can't drive stick and it will be her Winter ride and AWD is nice just because she is not confident and the 4wd in my current Jeep scares her. She is always afraid of screwing it up, not shifting it in properly or something so basically the easier to operate the better.

In my search, Volvo's keep popping up. I kinda dig the early 2000's XC wagons. primarily the XC70. i am a sucker for a wagon. So my real questions are how reliable are they? ease of working on them? Known issues with them? I do all my own maintenance and don't want something that is a real bear to work on or something that will nickle and dime me to death. If you have a better suggestion, please let me know. Budget is around $4000. and found a few XC70's in my area in that price range.

 

Read up on the AW55 trans and angle gear issues and know what you are dealing with. Not the end of the world, just be informed. The 2.4T or 2.5T is the preferred motor and considered bullet proof if given even 1/2 a chance.

 

Also be aware of the complexity of the haldex AWD on those wagons. You need to make darn sure it's working before you buy. They really just start taking power when the front is spinning, and for whatever crazy reason, they decided to use about 1000 moving parts and some computers to do that. The driveshaft is technically unserviceable, so they charge $1000 for that (because they can).

There is a guy who collects reliability data on these and posts it on this forum. I am no expert on the 99 and up cars.

The inline 6 XC90's have a problem that the transmission is not very good (too much power). Extremely difficult to work on; I replaced a transmission in one and it took months to get over it.. If you get an XC90, get a 5 cylinder.