How to buy used Volvo S60

At first, it is really good to set some requirements, before you choose or actually buy used car.

Mine was:

1. Diesel
2. D5 engine
3. Year 2000-200x
4. Manual gearbox

1) I like diesels because of their efficiency. Price difference between diesel and petrol engines were quite small, so I decided to get one.

2) D5 engine.
Volvo S60 diesels has several engine options:

• D    (2006–2009):93 kW, 300N·m, TD
• 2.4D (2001–2005):96 kW, 280N·m, TD
• 2.4D (2006–2009):120kW, 340N·m, TD
• D5   (2001–2005):120kW, 340N·m, TD
• D5   (2006–2009):136kW, 400N·m, TD

As my budget was limited at the time of buying to approx 6K EUR, only option was models of the year 2001-2006, thus justifying 3rd criteria.

4) Manual vs automatic:  S60 has quite bad record about automatic gear box reliability. Don't really know the reasons or story behind, but there are quite a lot forum posts about broken pre-2005 automatic gear box.

Ads

While checking advertisements, at first I took a look if there is any visible interior/exterior damage. If there was any - car was off the list.

Another criteria was service records and mileage. The problem is, that most of the cars has their odometers turned back and service books forged. Typically, if car is up to 10 years, odometer will be turned to 180-190   th. km, which is unlikely for a diesel. 

Expect at least 240-260 km - and that is minimum. Mine had ~167 000 after 4 years of driving, and 240 after another 6 (I have all service invoices)

You need to check interior: if it is not worn, check for leaks any other damages.

Exterior - if all spaces betwen e.g. doors are the same (this will indicate, that car was damaged and repaired). You can do that with a car key, or some other small size object - just to see, if spaces on the top of the doors are the same as on the bottom.

Engine: it has to start smoothly in normal temperatures.

If it is -25 - diesel engine might sound a little bit hard and shaky, but this is  ok - other Volvo owners coplain about same issue. It HAS to start - no matter what.

My final test was another volvo s60 owner, who took a test drive: just to evaluate, how the car "feels like". If there is no problems - you are good to go.