'97 S70 T5 manual in Coral Red - POSSIBLY for sale

[L7DDO]

Just my 2 peneth worth, I'd tried to sell my mint auto 1997 S70 with £2000 spent on it for £3500, and got shot down in flames. It eventually went for £2500 on Carandclassic, so I lost quite a few quid.

Saying that, I used to have a Coral Red S70 and LOVED it, and would buy yours in a heartbeat

[volvo321GO]

Glad you got an 850R in the BEST colour! Looks very clean, would be interested to know the condition of a Japanese one underneath and also the paintwork as I have considered buying one. Got two 850R's at the moment, love the things! Hope you enjoy it, I'm sure you will.
Don't know if you know that that car has been for sale for approximately 2 years, I keep a close eye on these. It's definitely a good price and probably pretty rare now being a saloon in red with the light interior.
I reckon the price of these will go up substantially in the next few years.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by L7DDO

Just my 2 peneth worth, I'd tried to sell my mint auto 1997 S70 with £2000 spent on it for £3500, and got shot down in flames. It eventually went for £2500 on Carandclassic, so I lost quite a few quid.

Saying that, I used to have a Coral Red S70 and LOVED it, and would buy yours in a heartbeat

out of interest, what model S70 was yours? Trying to work out what to pitch mine at if I decide to sell.

[RollingThunder]

Originally Posted by volvo321GO

Glad you got an 850R in the BEST colour! Looks very clean, would be interested to know the condition of a Japanese one underneath and also the paintwork as I have considered buying one. Got two 850R's at the moment, love the things! Hope you enjoy it, I'm sure you will.
Don't know if you know that that car has been for sale for approximately 2 years, I keep a close eye on these. It's definitely a good price and probably pretty rare now being a saloon in red with the light interior.
I reckon the price of these will go up substantially in the next few years.

They don't use road salt in Japan, so the cars barely rust at all because although its quite a humid country, it gets ravagingly hot in the summer, so any dampness is quickly eradicated. To give you an example, this is the underside of my old 2001 UK Landrover Discovery V8 -



And this is the replacement, a 2001 Discovery Japanese import V8 -



Exactly the same age, exactly the same vehicles !!! And no, the second one hasn't had a replacement chassis - thats the original 18 year old one, same age as the rusty UK one - that failed its MoT due to chassis rust just 6 months after that pic was taken.

Paintwork wise, I've been told that the 850R has some lacquer peeling on the roof, which they're repainting. The heat also affects rubber and plastics - one annoying discovery on my Discovery is that the sealant that goes around the rear windows has perished, so streaks badly when you wash it - it leaves horrible black runs down the bodywork Any convoluted plastic tubing around engine wiring looms will also have crumbled away and will need replacing.

But usually thats the extent of the problems - the Japanese MoT is VERY expensive (typically well over £1k every year) and very stringent, so if the car is still on the road after all these years it been cherished and will be in excellent condition.

Going back to the 850R, I agree with you - the saloons have been the underdog for a long time, but they cost the same originally (around £32k IIRC) and because they're outnumbered 4:1 (?) by the estates they are going to become rarer and rarer, and so logically their value must increase, particularly the good ones. But I haven't bought it as an investment, I simply missed our old 850R so much that I've wanted another since the day I sold ours - its going to be a cherished daily driver

[L7DDO]

Originally Posted by Alpine

out of interest, what model S70 was yours? Trying to work out what to pitch mine at if I decide to sell.

Mine was the S70 T5 SE Auto, it only had 90k on the clock and one owner! It was near mint, with tons of history

[forbsie09]

I'd be very interested in your lovely S70
I assume it wont be for sale for a while yet ? I do have a couple of things to sell myself, so that be fine for me - although I sold my Merc C180 estate about a month ago, but the guy hasn't been able to collect it due to travel restrictions, and there's no sign of being relaxed just yet !
I love your attention to detail, and particularly your "detailing" something I'm very much into myself, there's unlikely a better custodian than me
If you can keep me posted re the sale of the S70

Love the 850 btw

[RollingThunder]

Hi Forbsie, yes I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to detailing - my OCD tendencies kick in and the smallest blemish becomes an intolerable eyesore to me lol.

I'll let you know when it becomes available, but as you've pointed out, it could be a while. I've emailed the importer to ask when the ship is due to land in the UK, but after that I expect quite a delay while the paperwork is sorted out and the car is prepped - for example they have promised to waxoyl it, and do some paintwork correction... which will be difficult in an extended lockdown!

Thanks for your kind sentiment, and interest

[forbsie09]

Originally Posted by RollingThunder

Hi Forbsie, yes I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to detailing - my OCD tendencies kick in and the smallest blemish becomes an intolerable eyesore to me lol.

I'll let you know when it becomes available, but as you've pointed out, it could be a while. I've emailed the importer to ask when the ship is due to land in the UK, but after that I expect quite a delay while the paperwork is sorted out and the car is prepped - for example they have promised to waxoyl it, and do some paintwork correction... which will be difficult in an extended lockdown!

Thanks for your kind sentiment, and interest

Whats the procedure buying from Japan ? is it an auction, or is it specific dealers in Japan for the UK ? I see a lot of cars from Japan advertised, and am often tempted, but, surely all paperwork re servicing etc will be in Japanese ! also, something that would really get to me is the speedo is in kilometers !

I get what your saying about detailing OCD I am exactly the same LoL

[RollingThunder]

I've bought the 850R directly from the importer, so he is looking after all the shipping, insurance, registration, MoT etc for me. I just buy the car from him when its UK registered and road legal.

You mentioned the speedo being in km - you are absolutely correct, the Japanese speedo shows km only. The way that most importers get around this is to supply a GPS speedo that plugs into the cigar lighter. The MoT doesn't actually need the instrument cluster speedo to be in mph - but there needs to be 'a' speedo that shows the speed in mph. As you can imagine, I'm not satisfied with this and so have bought an 850R instrument cluster from a UK spec car and will 'adjust' the odometer to show the translated km>miles recorded miles. The car's ECU has a record of the recorded mileage which can be interrogated via the OBDII port, however there is nothing stopping a cluster from being swapped. I'll be keeping the original Japanese cluster of course, to verify the originally recorded mileage.

In the Japanese Discovery that I have, the importer fitted a brand new cluster programmed with the correct mileage. In the Disco the cluster can be reprogrammed to show a higher mileage than the cluster has already recorded, but you can only program the cluster to match the ECU's record. You can't update the ECU from the cluster. If the ECU and cluster have a mismatch, the odometer flashes when the engine is started.

Regarding the service records... the service book is usually stamped up, so you can check that it has had some attention, however anything noted in handwriting will be in Japanese. The service sheets for the Discovery are A1 sized - they are HUGE. And totally indecipherable unless you can read Japanese You usually get an export certificate that tells you the recorded mileage, along with the general condition of the car. If you are lucky it will say when the cambelt was changed - otherwise you rely on the presence of a sticker. TBH you have to assume it needs a cambelt and full stage 0 as soon as you take ownership. Most importers will offer a 3month warranty, but I'm not convinced that its worth trying to claim against lol.

As I've said elsewhere, generally speaking Japanese cars are in superb condition and will be top spec. The difference the lack of road salt makes is just astounding. Little things like nuts and bolts aren't corroded after 20 years! Radiators and aircon condensers etc don't rust. Holes caused by rust are very very rare and are usually accompanied by prior accident damage. Of course you still need to be cautious, but *generally* they're an excellent bet. If you're tempted, join some JDM forums and see what they say about their cars. I have a friend with a JDM Nissan Stagea (basically a 300+bhp '90s Nissan Skyline estate) and his was in a similar rust free condition - and everything worked (and still does).