Trading the Volvo for a Volvo...

I got an offer to trade my Volvo V70 for a same year S70.

Illustration for article titled Trading the Volvo for a Volvo...
Gif: This is the car in question. (AP)
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So I have this V70 wagon which has cost me a pretty penny to get fixed up a bit, and I still have problems with it. I expect multiple thousand kunas of expenses in the coming months. A guy I know who deals with these P80 Volvos offered me an unregistered S70 2.0 Turbo (pictured) for my NA wagon, beacuse he is looking for a wagon body for a project.

Here are the stats:

My V70 wagon

530.000 kilometers (350.000 miles) on the clock

Timing belt LOOKS ok but I don’t know when it was changed.

AC works sometimes

Brakes are shit, the discs and pads need changing

Vacuum leak God knows where (the diagrams are useless since it has a botched LPG conversion job)

Rear shocks are shot

Exhaust leak. Sounds nice but will have to get fixed before registering next year

Leaks

But... It’s cool and I love it.

Worth when fixed up: 12.000 kuna

Total invested by me SO FAR: 14.000 kuna :/

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Illustration for article titled Trading the Volvo for a Volvo...
Gif: This is the car in question. (AP)

Offered S70 sedan

330.000 kilometers (200.000 miles) on the clock

Timing belt, water pump and fluids changed recently

AC works perfectly

LPG works perfectly

Brakes are perfect, front ones are upgraded to slotted thingys

New Sachs shocks all corners

Dinged front and rear bumper, bad trunk door. He has all the parts needed to fix them, I just have to mount them and spray paint them. I have a guy for the painting.

Worth when fixed up: 20.000 kn

Investment needed: 3.500 kn for the registration process.

But... It’s ugly. I just don’t like it.

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The turbo is a rare car here. All P80 Volvos are pretty rare, and the turbos can fetch a nice price and go quickly. So I think the sedan is a better deal for me - I have a chance to get my money back. I doubt there’s any serious problems with the sedan, even though I only drove it around on a parking lot (because no plates on it). I trust the guy, I have known him for a while now.

Why does he want to trade then? He just wants a wagon body. His logic is that after selling the sedan he will have to spend months looking for a wagon to pop up for sale (again, these cars are rare here). He could finish the restoration on the sedan, and maybe sell it and look for a wagon in Austria and Germany, but then he would have to go through a long import process, which he says he doesn’t want to deal with. He plans to rip apart the whole wagon and use just the chassis for another project. I think he found a BIFUEL model which he needs a new body for. Hence his ignoring the problems the wagon has.

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If I end up hating the S70 - I will finish the bumpers and minor repairs and sell it. Then I will have some money to get something I like and probably have some cash left over.

A bittersweet deal, but I went with reason over heart.

Waddaya think Oppo?



P.S. Does anyone have experiences with the 2.0turbo? Is it noticeably faster than an NA or...?