Hi,


First time posting here, and I took some time looking around the forum to see whether a similar set of questions had been asked before, but could not find one. If this thread is superfluous, please let me know and I can close it.

I am in need of a car for the next 3-4 months, possibly 6 months, and don't want to tie up a lot of money in buying one. I've looked at swapalease.com and the like, but what I ideally want to achieve is the purchase of a ~10 year old car that is reliable and that will not end up selling for much less than what I purchased the car for when I get rid of it. We don't really need an SUV, but I've always liked the XC90 and from looking online, it appears I might be able to buy one of this vintage for $7-10k. My question is basically whether these cars from those years are reliable, and whether there are any particular pitfalls to look out for. Is a purchase of a 10 year old XC90 at $9k, for instance, just a lot of deferred maintenance waiting to be incurred, or is it an OK deal? I know there's no black/white answer to this, but I figured I would ask anyway. We are in the NYC metropolitan area, so, incidentally, if you know of someone selling, feel free to let me know (pending the answer to these questions, of course...).

Thank you

 

If I were to buy a 10 year old car - I would buy a Toyota.

I owned a Volvo repair shop for 38 years, and was a tech in the shop. In later years I would work on my customers other cars - their Toyotas, Subarus, Hondas, and many others - BMW, Jag, SAAB etc. I would ask my Toyo owners what they had done to their cars during the 200k miles or so they owned them and most of the answers were - Oh, oil changes, tires, a couple of tune-ups, and maybe some brake pads -

That is not what you will experience with a Volvo or any other European or British car.

 

Hi,

Thank you for responding. I hear what you're saying, and a nice 4Runner, Highlander and the like would likely fit my needs. I just have a bit of a liking for the XC90. As I mentioned, this is a car for 3-5 months and likely not a whole lot of driving (we are basically relocating outside of Manhattan for a little bit of time, and will be working from home, so the car will only be used to go to the store, and so on). I consider myself a pretty big car guy, but I don't want to get a car that will give me actual utility in that regard until I know we won't be living in the city / it would be stupid of me to own such a car. So, by getting an XC90, I kind of felt like I could get a little bit more car than I would with a Toyota, which are of course incredibly reliable but somewhat, to me, soulless cars. I think the rational thing to do, though, is to get a Toyota, like you say.