Hi there.

I need help deciding what to get for my 18 yo daughter.
Looking at 2001 S40 with 110k and cloth interior or a 2002 S40 with 160k and black leather interior.
Not sure yet how the vehicles will compare mechanically, both owners state they have taken immaculate care of the car...
Other than year and leather, is there any major differences in those two cars. Is there anything special I should look for in one or the other?

Thanks!

 

Make sure the timing belt has been changed and any recalls taken care of.

I have a grey cloth 2001 and the cloth shows stains. I like the car though. Gave it to my 16 year old daughter. Just waiting for the first crash....

 

Thanks!

I was assuming that if any of the recalls are not taken care of, I can do it by taking it to the local dealer. And timing belt is for sure

 

I might be inclined to go with the lower mileage 2001 given the transmission on my 2003 is about shot and it has 181k. I'm not really seeing that much difference in features when I look at edmunds.com. Initially I thought the 2001 did not have side curtain air bags but I believe they do (you should check on this).

 

Design wise, the 2001 and 2002 are pretty much identical. It boils down to the condition of the individual cars. 160K is a lot of miles unless they are all highway.
Stan

 

Thanks again & I ended up buying the 01, not because I really liked it, but because it was MUCH nicer than the 02. Still don't get why people have to lie when they sell their (or maybe not theirs) cars. Guy failed to mention that car has a huge gouging scratch along whole passenger side, had a huge dent at the tail end of it and would not run rite at idle. That guy knew that I was going to drive close to two hours to see the car
Anyway, got the 01 locally and so far happy, just need to figure out why transmission slams in the first gear after it downshifts.
Oh yea,
and the 01 (at least the one I got) does have the curtain air bags.

 

Good to hear you got the 2001. Looks like you have a few Volvo's like myself. On the shifting issue try flushing the fluid in the transmission with Toyota T-IV. You will need twelve quarts (case) so buy it from the Toyota dealer. You can do the flushing at home by removing the hose from the transmission (the one on the right when facing the front of the car) to the radiator (transmission cooling hose) and connecting a small hose to run to a one gallon jug. Drain the fluid from the transmission first (about three quarts). Put the plug back in and hook up the hose to the gallon jug. Now run the car and let the fluid fill the jug. Careful it only takes about thirty seconds (good to have a helper). Put four quarts of transmission fluid in the transmission. Run the car again and fill the jug. Do this until you have used about 11 quarts of fluid. You should see red fluid going through the hose to your one gallon jug. Put all the hoses back and make sure the drain plug is on tight. With the car on level ground check to see if the level on the dipstick is correct. Add some fluid if needed. Test drive the car.

 

Thanks a lot for your answer.
I actually already bought the T-IV fluid from the dealer on Thursday and started the "flushing" process. I have no usable space in the garage so I decided to drain the fluid from the case through the dipstick tube - big mistake. Not in general, just for myself. I have three different suction/evacuating mechanisms to do this, but none of them worked, so I ended up using another pump I have, to drain the fluid. Because I was messing with my pumps I ended up not having enough time to finish flushing. I do have a question regarding that late slam in transmission. From my experience it is usually have something to do with pressure in the transmission lines or the valve body issues. BTW, I ended up draining close to 4.5 qts of fluid on initial drain. I was under impression that these transmissions have 3.7 qts initial fill. Could grossly overfilled transmission behave like that? And I sometimes use Trans- X treatment in my transmission to cure some misbehaving, not sure about these though, because they use completely different fluid and I don't want to end up melting some or all gaskets and having to replace the whole transmission.
Thanks!

 

Finally finished the "flush", the first gear slam on slow down is GONE, but now, maybe because I am more concentrating on it, i feel a forward slam from the get go. Anyway, there is not much I can do about it, short or taking it to the trans. shop.