I bid £1,170 thinking that would trump anyone (particularly traders) who work in 'round' numbers like £995. Sure enough, the end price was £995, with me the winning bidder.
First hurdle: tell the wife I've just spent a thousand pounds on a gas-guzzling saloon.
"Darling?"
"What?"
"What do you think of Volvos?"
"They're big, ugly and driven by twats. Why do you ask?"
"Weeeeelll, I might have accidentally just bought one."
"WHAT?!"
Some time later, I showed her some pictures of the interior, which seemed to do the trick.
A bit of background: my other car is a 1999 Peugeot 306 HDi, which is brilliant on fuel (50mpg) but is noisy and uncomfortable and to be honest, I'm getting bored of changing gear with a clutch and gear lever.
Most importantly, my wife tells me the ride is so bad, that it makes her want to go to the loo. Any self-respecting husband will understand that the time lost finding and using a highway toilet is time that could be better spent reading the paper and/or drinking tea.
Anyway, back to the purchase: a 1998 Volvo S90 3.0 auto saloon.
The seller, 'Webcarmart', has good feedback, although is a trader. I have an inherent distrust of traders having suffered at the hands of a few in the past. However, this setup seems to specialise in Volvos, and the description was pretty comprehensive, highlighting the good and bad bits. Some extracts below:
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Vehicle Description
A rare example of the last of the line 940/960 series, a 1998 S90 3.0 Luxury Edition 204 Auto in blackberry metallic with a very good service history, leather/alcantara, high power audio CD system, sunroof, electric seats (both driver & passenger with memory on driver's), alloys & cruise control.
These are rare cars - there are only about 40-50 S90 LE's in the UK.
All the toys work fine, including the aircon which is nice and cold (or as much as we can tell this time of year), electric aerial and even the sunroof tilts and slides fine (rare on these cars - the slide mechanism often breaks).
On the exterior, it is not like new, but for the age and mileage in our opinion is pretty good. Obviously there is some wear and tear, the odd mark here and there etc. but it is really still quite a smart looking old beast. There is a patch of lacquer missing on the boot edge, a ding on the offside rear bumper corner and small scuff on the front nearside bumper corner.
The interior is very good in our opinion, apart from some of the usual "bubbling" on the alcantara inserts it is very hard to find anything to fault.
The car drives just as it should and is very smooth. If you're used to the 740/940 cars these are much nicer as they have fully independent suspension and ride/handle considerably better.
We have service book with 9 stamps right up to 104740 miles and invoices for the last 3 services. The cambelt was changed at 74842 miles.
We have V5 (logbook), manual pack, service book, service invoices and 2 keys.
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So, with a little logistical juggling, I made plans to public transport myself to Colchester to collect.
Yep looks like something a funeral director would drive. Still it's unlikely to get stolen! I look forward to reading about it's adventures in the Midlands.
ReplyDeleteAs a chauffeur, I drove one of these in the auto version. What a fantastic car it was! Comfortable, quiet, fast and very manoeuvrable, especially in London! And, a 'Gas-guzzling saloon' it certainly was not! I will never understand why Volvo only produced it for such a short time? In my opinion it was a winning formulae, certainly our clients loved it! It now looks quite dated but back then... it was 'the business'! My BIG regret was that I went away on holiday and when I returned, it had gone to auction. Had I known, I would certainly have bought it.
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