Hello everyone,

I am a novice, and I am shopping for my first car.

I recently found a 2004 Volvo S60 2.4 at a local dealership

1) it has 52000 miles on it
2) regularly maintained (maintenance records on carfax report)
3) Single owner
4) price quote: $8300

I was looking for advice on how reliable this model year of the S60 is as this will be my commuter car. I will be putting over 25000 highway miles per year.

Anything that I should be aware of in terms of reliability of certain systems in the car for this model year?

Is this price about right? The value on KBB was about 4800$, but the dealer is quoting higher.

What are the important things that I should check for?

Should there be any maintenance that has to be carried out at 50000 miles? And how expensive can this get?

If any of you owned this car, it would be great to hear your experience with this car.

Thanks in advance

 

Are you located in the states? The miles are low, but don't forget these cars have common issues that start showing around 60k miles. The dealer will always ask an extra $2k or more but if the car was well taking care of, I think it's worth around $7k.

Important things: the transmission fluid change (good chances it was never done, carefully inspect the gear shifting). Never flush the fluid on these somehow fragile transmissions, always only drain and replace with the proper fluid. Check the front lower arm bushings - they wear and are expensive to replace, the CV joints boots for leaking grease, the cluster panel for working properly, drivers seat bottom for being as firm as the passenger one - it tends to wear and to get crushed.

As for the maintenance at 50k miles, it's about time to do the timing belt kit (10 years old) which is about $500 at a local garage. The water pump can wait another 100k miles. The car can do a good commuter, just keep in mind it will develop defects that must be fixed at local garages as the dealer service is extremely expensive and not always helpful (and surely get advices from forums will help a lot to save money)