Back to cheap motoring! Volvo S60 D5 2003

[triggerh4ppy]

This story starts with me being part of a motorway pile up in my daily commute car. E60 525d
Before


After





The insurance wrote this car off, although this was an easy fix I decided I now wanted to enjoy some cheap motoring, I do approx 140 miles a day in my commute so wanted a car that could handle the motorway and also be comfortable. I set myself a budget of 2k as i thought anything I bought was going to depreciate a lot because of the mileage I was doing and at this price range all the depreciation had already taken place!. I narrowed my search to 3 cars:

- Skoda Fabia VRS 1.9tdi (little pocket rocket but everything below 2k was abused, and I couldnt imagine this being very comfortable on long drives due to sport seats and not much sound insulation)

- VAG mobile a3/golf/octavia (Most of these looked boring and I have already had a mk5 golf in the past)

- Volvo S60/V70 D5 (V70 worked out to be way too big for me)

Spending 3 days looking through what was out there most examples had been thrashed/not looked after/Owner didnt know his a*se from elbow. I narrowed my search down to wanting an manual S60 D5 SE S60 with the pre dpf 163bhp engine.

I then found this on autotrader



SE spec, only 98000 miles, loads of service history. £2000

Spoke to the dealer he seemed reasonable and honest enough on the phone I told him I would come and have a look but made sure I was happy before I even left (Car was 160 miles away!).

Turned up 2pm at the dealer, tells me the car is a mile down the road and gave me the key to go have a look.
Dead battery!!!!!, so the battery was toally gone and the car would not start, I was very annoyed at this as I had just made a 2 hour journey to see the car and he hadnt even checked it it started!!. So he tells me he would get it started on monday and I can come back. This is when I had to explain to him I was not about to make another 160 mile journey and if he can find me some jump leads I would get the thing started myself. I got it started and took it for a test drive, clutch seemed fine no play in steering, exhaust didnt look like it leaked (did the block the end test), brakes had just been changed. After some haggling we shook hands at £1300. Happy days!

MPG figures on the way home!

[M1C]

Typical rubbish trader stuff by not even getting the car ready.

Pleased you persisted though and thats some great haggling! £2,000 down to £1,300! Wow!

Nice car, really like this. And thats some mpg figure there!

[Countdown]

I do like Volvos of that era. What do you think of the seats?

Him agreeing to drop a £2k car by £700 seems quite....surprising?

[u04pww2]

I've been looking at these for a while. I hear the seats and sound system are excellent and the engine sounds quite good for a diesel?

[M1C]

You hear right! The seats are excellent. Both 'comfy' and supportive. The engine also sounds good and thats one 'deisel' barrier passed already - although it's not quiet and you can feel thats it's a big heavy engine.

[triggerh4ppy]

[redacted]

[triggerh4ppy]

Also have found .....
Digital TV Tuner

But there is no sw on the headunit to run this can anyone help with what sw is used to view tv tuner on android head units.

Random red switch

This seems to do nothing when switched off?? Was on when I bought the car.

Head unit is also intermittent with wifi, does anyone know where I can find information on this headunit? SW updates? Must be someone here who sells these things

[Roger Woods]

Good luck, I have been running my 2005 V70 for 4 years now, great car, on 186,500 currently and I think I will hit 200,000.00 miles in Jan/Feb time, all going well I will just keep and run until it no longer does......

[IanCress]

I wonder if all these additional electrics are draining the battery. I'd keep a set of jump leads handy if the car is ever left sat on the driveway for a couple of days.

[MDMA .]

I thought Fake Taxi, but it's not a black cab ( so i've been told )

[Darlo 1]

I to have an s60 d5 2004 vintage, the obc lies...........a lot, but on a steady 65 mph cruise i have got 55-60mpg measured out of mine. The volvo owners club forum is a good place to visit for bags of info on these motors, looks like a nice motor you got there.

[markirl]

I've always thought these are a great go-to for high mileage driving. Hope it's good to you!

[aland75]

I have the same android head unit.
Try the aux video input for the TV tuner.
If it's an older analogue one it won't find any channels.

[mholt1995]

Head unit looks like your typical cheap Android head unit, courtesy of China. Seeing as it's Android 4.4 I'd estimate it's around 3 year old, no chance of a software update or any real support if so.

When you say intermittent with Wifi, how do you mean? Are you using your phone as a WiFi hotspot and connecting to that?

[triggerh4ppy]

Yes using as WiFi hotspot. Only connects when it feels like it. Otherwise it finds the hotspot but just didn't connect even when clicking on it. Tried it with other phones and even my home WiFi. Every couple of days it will just connect itself and start working....


The aux is just a sound input... There no button to press for aux??