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volvo - What is the best car for me? - James Girdler

I am in need of a car that has the following:

- decent high up drive level

- decent MPG

- preferably diesel, though not essential

- decent boot space

I have been looking at Volvo XC70/90, these come up trumps in most areas, but I'm not a fan of anything Automatic. I drive a 200TDI defender 90, so prefer the gearstick.

I realise any SUV or taller vehicle won't be the best on the long drives, in comparison to an estate like the xc70, octavia, bmw, subaru, etc, would just be good for a taller driving height.

It's not necessarily for a large family, just be good to have decent boot space.

Volvo is the option I'm swaying to, pricey to service and maintain I know, but my old man used to work for volvo specialists and they are very reliable diesel engines, the D5 is the one I'm after, if I opt VOLVO.

However, if anyone has any ideas, be greatly appreciated. I don't necesarily need the AWD or 4x4, so 2WD volvo could be an option. Used to have a vauxhall frontera, great external design in my eyes, just not great elsewhere.

Thanks in advance all.

volvo - What is the best car for me? - badbusdriver

You forgot the most important info before anyone can recommend anything, budget?!.

You mentioned the XC70, this ran from 1996-2016, so this covers a price ranging from under £2k to well over £20k. The XC90 starts under £2k but as it is still in production, prices can run to nearly £70k!.

volvo - What is the best car for me? - James Girdler

Ah yes, that would help!

£2000 - £5000

Most half decent XC70s are somewhere in the middle there, but happy to pay extra for something more.

Thanks

volvo - What is the best car for me? - badbusdriver

Ah yes, that would help!

£2000 - £5000

Most half decent XC70s are somewhere in the middle there, but happy to pay extra for something more.

Thanks

Well, £5k isn't really that much for a car of that sort. You have to realise that whatever you buy is going to be a bit of a risk. How reliable a reliable car remains once it gets beyond ten years is going to be determined, at least in part, by how the car has been looked after (or otherwise) up to that point. Also, again because of the type of car you are looking for, even though they are diesel, they are not going to be that efficient*.

With that out of the way, that Volvo engine is likely to be very reliable. Your problem is going to be finding a version with a manual gearbox. Looking at examples up to £5k, there are a grand total of four XC70's nationwide (on Autotrader), and looking at the pics, one of those is actually an S80. There are eight XC90's, one of which has less than 100k miles, the others range from 125-165k miles.

Other possibilities you could consider (and i am looking at examples up to 100k miles) are the Honda CR-V 2.2 i-DTEC, Hyundai Santa Fe 2.2 CRDi, Toyota RAV4 2.2 D-4D (some Toyota diesels are sourced from BMW and are not that reliable, but i think the 2.2 here is Toyota's own), and the Kia Sorento 2.5 CRDi.

*Some years ago i was quizzing someone who bought a 3.0 V6 petrol Shogun, particularly why he bought a petrol rather than the diesel. He said that the difference in economy between the petrol and diesel wasn't as big as most folk think. On top of that, the fact that petrol, then (as is the case now) was cheaper than diesel, meant the differences in fuel costs were actually pretty small (obviously if you were going to be covering a lot of miles, the difference would get bigger).

volvo - What is the best car for me? - pd

Your budget should just about get you a 3rd generation XC70 (2008 on) example.

They're decent cars, great motorway munchers although not great on the twisties. Manuals are out there. The 2009 on 205bhp version is more economical and has less turbo lag than the 185 but may be just out of budget unless you accept loads of miles.

They all have leather, a great stereo and AWD (there were some later 2WD versions).

volvo - What is the best car for me? - Falkirk Bairn

£2 to £5K for an old Volvo - you could spend this amount repairing an old diesel.

12 year old diesel Volvo - money pit, avoid. They might be big, look good in the sunshine but they are cheap for a reason.

volvo - What is the best car for me? - pd

£2 to £5K for an old Volvo - you could spend this amount repairing an old diesel.

12 year old diesel Volvo - money pit, avoid. They might be big, look good in the sunshine but they are cheap for a reason.

Any 12 year old car has risk attached (so do some 4 year old ones). The 5 cylinder lump rarely gives major issue - keep on top of cambelt and aux belt changes and with a fair wind they'll plod on very well.

I've driven loads of these in various Volvos with 200k+ on the clock and they've always been absolutely fine.

volvo - What is the best car for me? - Engineer Andy

Bear in mind that many modern SUVs don't have any more interior height inside the cabin than an equivalent standard car, mainly because they look higher because the ride height is jacked up a few inches.

That consequently means the vehcile will handle less well, give lower (sometimes considerably) mpg than a similarly sized (interior/boot space) hatch/saloon/estate car and also cost more to buy, especially as they are 'more fashionable' at the moment.

I would ask are you needing a diesel because you either regularly do long trips / do a high annual mileage (but not made up of mainly short trips from cold) and/or regularly lug heavy loads, where the extra mpg on long trips or grunt to haul heavy loads is useful?

As has been said, you are far more likely to source a petrol car in that price bracket (and a newer one, unless its a very sporty model - don't bother) that will stand a better chance of being reliable (engine-wise), as modern petrol cars (aside from a few) are more tollerant of abuse, especially low mileage examples being used for repeated short trips from cold.

A modern diesel can fail very expensively without warning if it was previously driven in an unsympatheic way and/or not really well cared for.

As you're coming from a LandRover, I'd also be wary of buying upper-spec models with wide, low profile (below 50) tyres and big alloys - if you live in a rural community or an area with lots of poorly surfaced roads, then those sort of wheel-tyre combos are potentially dangerous as well as expensive because they are far more likely to fail/get damaged regularly. They also don't work so well in poor weather, wear far quicker and give worse mpg/noise.

I'd still seriously consider an estate car for the space, as you might be pleasantly surprised what you can get for the money. Unlesss you absoluetly need 4x4/4WD because of the road conditions/of-road usage, then stick with 2WD (far cheaper to buy/run) and perhaps consider getting a set of all-season tyres next time you change them, or having a summer/winter set combo.

volvo - What is the best car for me? - pd

You will struggle to find a petrol XC70 in that price bracket - they only sold about 3 covering those years and for good reason. They're not very good, cost loads to tax and drink like a fish. The diesel suits the car much better and is arguably more reliable than the petrols as well.