I've seen a handful of S60 T5's for about $4000-5000 and I'm interested in picking one up. I plan to go test drive one this weekend, but just wanted to see if there's anything in particular I should look out for when I go to check the car out? It's got 95K miles and looks very clean. I'm used to owning American made cars that aren't that expensive to maintain. How many problems can generally be expected from a these older S60 T5 models with near 100K miles?

Just curious, where do you live? A 2001 for $4000 seems very expensive.

Besides that, the 2001 and 2002 are the ones that all had transmissions problems. You will need to drive the car for 20minutes+ to have the transmission fluid heated up to feel for any behavior with the shifting (or to ask the owner to drive the car prior to inspection). If there is any shifting issue, pass on as is almost impossible to repair/replace the transmission for a good price.

I live in San Diego, CA. The KBB value comes up as $6400 for the car I'm looking at. I've seen some for under $4000, but they all have a ton of miles on them. 150K-200K.

Is that transmission issue on the stick shift or the automatic? Or does it happen to both?

The automatic is problematic. Manual I think have slave cylinder failures expensive too but manageable.

You are too far from Canada, same model here would be $2000-$3500 for a 120k-150k miles

However all Volvo at 100k+ miles will always need costly repairs that are way to expensive to do at the dealer, usually better to have a salvage yard nearby and to DIY. Some parts tend to last, while other will fail in all models and are not cheap. Those are vehicles that will require repairs even when maintained by the book.

I agree, the 01 02 Volvos are plagued with Transmission problems. Had to swap my tranny in my 02 S60 with an 03 V70 tranny from a salvaged car about 4 years ago.

All these cars with over 100k miles on them like the person said above come to a point where you have to do quite a few repairs. Fortunately if you are willing to get dirty and learn from sites like this you can pick up lots of it fast.

The engines in most of these cars are solid. If I was in the market again for one of these era cars. (s60,s80,v70) I would avoid 2001 and 2002 models. So many reports on this site about transmission slipping problems. The only other thing I would say about these era cars. Atleast in my experience is all the bulbs. Taillights, brake lights, headlights seem to go frequently about every year to year 1/2 it seems like. I got so sick of buying them at AutoZone I went ahead and pre-ordered the ones for the next on the internet for less.

Is there any way to tell if the car has these transmission problems just by test driving it? Or do you generally have to drive it for extended periods of time to know?

Get the seller to come to a meeting point. This way he would have drive the car and the transmission will be warmed up. Then check carefully while driving. Most current symptoms is flare when up-shifting especially 2nd to 3rd (rmp jumps up while it changes the gear). Also clunks when engaging a gear, or delay to engage a gear. There is no other way to check than to drive it. Even a clean transmission color fluid is not an indicator - the owner could have changed the fluid recently specifically because of shifting problems.

Yea, you would have to drive it. Just because it doesn't have the problem does not mean it won't happen in the future.

Not sure if you are into performance and all that. But personally I try to avoid Turbo's. You have to change the oil more often. When they get older you have more problems with the PCV system. Not to mention it much more work doing and engine work; i.e. removing parts related to the Turbo.

I will say also most of the general work on these Volvo's aren't that hard. Much easier than most Japanese cars where you have to lift the whole engine out to get to anything. But because these engine's are transposed it can be tricky getting to certain item's. If you jump from American to Volvo make sure you have Star Bits and Metric Sockets. That's all I can say.

Other than the dreaded transmission problem and a few electrical quirks. I really enjoy my 02 s60. Bought it with about 85k closing in on 175k.

Well, the car sold before I could even go check it out. Probably still going to be on the lookout for one. Thanks for the tips guys!