S reg V70 2.5T Definitely For Sale .. £1300 ono , must go!

[Goldmember]

Hi.
I am putting this ad up as "Saga" has to go. As in my previous thread I have always wanted a Turbo'd V70 Mk1 for ages and bought her to keep and tinker/learn about these cars. The ONLY reason I'm selling her is despite me spending a fair amount of cash getting her "right" the chance of me getting an R came up unexpectedly ( which to me is the Holy Grail of these ) at a price I couldn't refuse, so the wife gave the go-ahead to borrow from the "doing-up-the-kitchen" fund .... and now it's time to do up the kitchen!!

Ok here's my initial advert with some additions:

I bought " Saga " from a private seller , who is member on here , down in North Cambridgeshire at the end of July as I'd been wanting a turbo'd V70 for ages. The car was superbly clean and tidy. She has 3 previous owners , I'm the 4th , and has now done 110,300 miles.
Service history was 11 stamps in the book, and the timing belt was done at 83k miles. It's had a new fuel filter and had the ETM changed ( now a yellow labelled one) which is as u know a quite common failure.
Anyway the short version of the story is after I bought it and filled up with Gulf petrol local to the seller the CEL came on, but no other ill effects. However the further I drove the worse the car ran, misfiring, eventually I had to call it quits in Stafford. Recovered home to the south-side of Glasgow. My local indi sorted the problem of the misfire and git rid of the cr*p petrol.
As the weeks went on the CEL kept coming on but the car ran fine. So after checking all hoses I eventually decided to change the MAF with a replacement Bosch one and it seems to have solved it.
The air con wasnt working I had it regassed and it works perfectly.
In the meantime , after driving it for a few weeks I noticed the rear was very wallowy , so I replaced the rear shocks with Bilstein OE equivalent and new Springs from Partsforvolvo.
I also fitted 4 new Khumo Ecsta Sport tyres on the 15" wheels, and got the alignment and geometry done at Macklin Motors, a Nissan and Ford dealership just up the road from me.
Although the oil looked okay and the previous owner said he'd changed it , I decided to do an oil change , using a new original Volvo filter and Shell Fully Synthetic Helix oil from Opie Oils.
I also did 3 Automatic gearbox oil changes using Dextron 3 fluid and it is lovely and smooth changing gears now.
Silly stuff , but important to me , has also been done like new Bosch wipers and Osram Nightbreaker Unlimited bulbs fitted along with matching side light bulbs. Also the most important mod , the Prancing Moose stickers are proudly fitted!
The car runs lovely, smooth , quiet, but can still get up and go! No knocks or bangs an no engine lights on.
Had it MOT'd in September 2014 , it flew through, perfect emissions readings and no advisories.

On deciding to put this up for sale in December I thought I'd better use her to make sure everything is ok.
After running her for a day the CEL light came on . I read the code and it was P0422. Now I had encountered this code once before on the day before the MOT!! I cleared the light back then and , as you will see from the MOT photo , the emissions were perfect and definitely not Cat related . My garage that I trust 100% said it was perfect.
So last week I double checked everything again ( hose connections/MAF etc ). The car still ran perfectly, it did not affect the running or performance at all . On reading up a few posts suggested giving the car another good run.
Well yesterday ( Sun 4th Jan ) after using the car all day the light went out itself and , still using the car , it has not come back on . On checking back it doesn't surprise me as I have only done 250 miles since the beginning of September. I have also been running her on Tescos Momentum 99 that she seems to like

I know I could pretend this has never happened but I want to be upfront and honest. I know for fact that Saga is a lovely sorted car to drive and is not going to break down on her new buyer! ( like what happened to myself! )

I know my asking price is a tad high, but having spent loads ( about £700 ) on this car it doesn't want for anything . I don't really want to budge on my price as I'm losing money on it and I have to pay back the kitchen funds!

Also I have a set of 16" T5 wheels with 4 brand new Avon ZX5 tyres fitted which cost me over £400 which I'll be putting up for sale ( or sell with the car on top of the asking price)

Btw I have the V5 in my name and 3 keys ( 2 with working fobs and a service key )

Pictures are coming up in the next post as for some reason Photobucket doesn't show any photos but the Mobile App does!

Any questions feel free to post or PM,
Cheers,
Steve

[Goldmember]

[Goldmember]

Saga wearing the T5 wheels..

[br850]

I desperately wanted this car but then a crap accountant and the VAT man conspired to put a big dent in my bank balance.
Steve is an excellent bloke to deal with and really helpful. I hope someone buys this car soon.

[Goldmember]

Bump and update:
Used Saga today, again she runs fine , no unwanted dash lights etc.
Have I missed anything out? Also happy to help , to some extent if distance is a problem.
I really don't want to Ebay her

[capt jack]

What a beautiful car. I can quite see why you've valued her as you have.

You ask what it is that you've missed, and I think that unfortunately your pricing is on the high side.

I can appreciate that you're looking for a return on all the TLC you've lavished on the car, but unfortunately car values don't generally work that way. To the buyer it's just an old Volvo estate. The fact that so much work has been done is a bonus, and makes it more saleable, and perhaps adds a bit to the value. But it doesn't increase the overall value by the cost of the work done.

For example, last September my car was worth £3500 according to all the price guides. I got the cambelt and water pump changed in October at a cost of £350.

In November had I tried to sell it, the value would have been £3400, and I'd have in effect 'lost' the cost of the cambelt job - plus the further depreciation of the additional month aged and 2000 miles driven.

I reckon that if you dropped your price below the £1000 mark then the car would sell. You have to look at it from a buyers point of view. £1300 would actually take the buyer into the world of P2 V70s, from a dealer, younger than yours, with the (albeit slight) advantages that this would be seen as bringing.

In the fickle and unforgiving world of older cars, age and model matter. Daft, but true.

Good luck with the sale. Your car is clearly a cracker, and common sense says that anyone in the market for a nice clean Volvo estate would be crazy not to go for it. Your car plus an LPG conversion would be good for another 10 years and 150,000 miles with fuel costs less than those of a small diseasel hatchback. For your asking price plus the conversion cost, say a total of £3000, the new owner would have a great car and cheap fuel costs for the next ten years.

However, when it comes to old cars logic and good sense simply don't apply.

I would love to think that you and 'Saga' will prove me 100% wrong!

Cheers

Jack

[Goldmember]

Thanks Capt Jack for your comments, all taken on-board and appreciated.
In my opinion selling her less than £1000 would be criminal.
I know you never get the cost of repairs back on a car when you're selling it but it's really condition and preventative measures rather than repairs.. ie new struts and springs vs knackered old bouncy Nivomats , that brings it back to top condition and shows the car is in a lot better state than some sub-£1000 cars.
To be fair I don't want to appear arrogant and felt the price is reasonable based on the overall condition of Saga, and hope that a future Volvo enthusiast can see and appreciate her rather than Joe Bloggs looking to buy an old shed.

Steve

[Mike1967]

What a beautiful looking V70 ... brings back memories of an 850 I used to own in that colour .If only the credit card could handle it

[brickman]

I would stick with that price, depends how you want to sell it. For what its worth or quickly!
To me she looks great, with these cars there are a few very expensive jobs, usually worth as much or more than the car.

The v70 TDI I bought last year had a £1400 bill just 1 month before I bought it for £600, it would have sold for £1500 all day long, but the guy didn't want to trade it into the dealer (for £250) so he let it go private super cheap & quick.

[Goldmember]

I'm willing to bring this down to £1200 but will not go lower than this.
Also am willing to travel with the car down to England but would obviously need a deposit 1st.
Come on people!
Cheers,
Steve