Hello! I have the opportunity to buy a 2005 XC90 at a very reasonable price from a family member (about $1,000 below blue book). It only has 81,000 miles on it, and has been lightly driven in the last 5 years. However, there is quite a bit of wear on the leather seats, and the driver seat needs to be replaced (broken plastic on side). In addition, there is an error code with the ABS that can't seem to be cleared, although my cousin said the system was checked and is fine.

As a potential new Volvo owner, what should I be on the lookout for before I buy? I was going to have a mechanic give it a look-over, but are there problems with this year/model? Are repairs as expensive as I've heard? Are the airbags and safety features all as effective after this many years?

The other concern is the gas mileage, as a V8 AWD, it gets very low mileage and it's a little more car than we need (we don't do any towing). So we are wavering between purchasing this or saving up for a newer Toyota Highlander.

Thank you for any advice or suggestions!!!

 

I would definitely have a shop look over the car. $1000 is not much of a discount for a car that needs work. You can price a replacement seat (used) by looking on car-parts.com or erievovo.com. You may even find something on Craigslist. For the ABS light, you need the some to pull the diagnostics code to determine how to resolve. You could have issues with your new registration if its on. Good news is the V8 engine uses a timing chain so there's no big ticket maintenance there. I happen to own a 2004 Highlander with 185K and that car had 1 repair in its first 14 years, 4 in the last 3 months (brake calipers, control arms, O2 sensor, valve cover gasket leak for $5000 total ugh) Still the Highlander is considered the most reliable/maintanable car ever.