Hello friends. I'm new here. Next Tuesday I'm going to see 1999 S70. The seller saying the car drives and it's in good condition, it has 280000 miles. The price is $700. I wonder why? Do those cars cost about this price today? Is there anything what I should be aware of? I actually never owned and even never drove a Volvo.
Thanks

 

it's likely you would get $700 of service out of it. They are pretty durable. Make sure you give it a really thorough test drive. If you live somewhere that the authority having jurisdiction requires all the warning lights to be off during some inspection, make sure it's ready to pass inspection. You probably can't inspect it, but the lights you can see. When people sell cars, sometimes they will say "this car his this problem but it'll be really easy for you to fix". You don't listen to that.

If you do buy it, there is a good 850 owners thread that explains the preventive maintenance.

 

I live in California, I just moved here from Florida. I know there is no inspections but smog test.
How does that work, if the car will not pass, is it a big problem? Or easy fix.

 

My point is nothing is an easy fix on a car that is for sale. If it was easy, the seller would just fix it. I can't see the car, I just have to tell you the general principle. In California, you want the car to pass smog, I do know that. Be open to the idea that it won't pass and try to convince yourself whether it will or won't.

 

Seller is some young lady who said she owns the car about a year, tags expired last november. I believe it will not pass smog test but the question is, what's usually wrong with vehicles what doesn't pass? I just saw couple pictures, car looks nice.

 

If you are unsure, why not invest $100 to have a professional inspection done which a computer scan? The wild cards are going to be when there's issues with the motor like excessive oil consumption due to rings or valve seals, a clogged PCV system, low compression or even head gasket issues. Those would be more expensive to fix than the car is worth but a shop can run some checks to confirm.

Regarding the car's ability to pass smog - I'd start by going to the State's DMV web site to see if its required for a car that's almost 20 years old. As a basic tutorial on emissions, modern computer controlled FI systems use a set of sensors to control fuel metering. In short, the ECU needs to know the correct amount of air and gas going into the mixture. If a part is bad, that will impact the mix. Emission control is a balancing act between HCs (ie unburnt fuel from too rich a mixture) or NOs which are produced when the combustion temps are too high - usually due to too lean a mixture. So to give a car the best chance of passing here's what I'd do: 1) start with a stage 0 tune up to make sure the spark is good. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor (I assume the 99 is the last S70 a distributor - if not, coil packs and plugs is what you'd need). 2) make sure there are no intake air leaks - vacuum tubes, intake air tubing et, exhaust leaks can all mess with fuel metering. 3) If you have a check engine light, scan for codes and address any failed parts. Note its common for O2 sensor issues to present that are actually other things like vacuum leaks. 4) Make sure the intake is clean - sometimes a dirty MAF or idle control valve can cause issues. Use CRC MAF cleaner not carb cleaner. 5) Consider moving to or selling the car in a state with no emissions testing on older cars :-)

 

Great day in the morning. It's actually pretty easy to get a car to run well if you have a good person to work on it. My opinion. If the car can be made to run perfectly, using oil would be a very real possibility due to the mileage. The catalyst is probably dead, but even if you replace the catalytic converter, the oil consumption may hurt it quite a bit. It may have some leaks in the fuel tank vent system.

So anyway, a $700 car that passes smog, you could probably get some use out of it. A $700 car that won't pass smog, you can't drive it. It's not really useful. At least that is what I would expect.

 

Don't walk, but run away!