Mk1 C70 T5 Convertible - terrible idea?
Discussion
I was wondering if I can get some advice here. Having recommended to a 23 year old woman who has just totalled her hateful little Mercedes A140 that she buys a Mk1 Volvo C70 T5 manual I am now having a crisis of confidence and thinking "that's a terrible idea".
I know it's a floppy old school convertible, but that's fine for her and her usage and her mileage is low so the fuel economy doesn't matter. We've found a very clean 2005 car with extremely low mileage that appears to be very clean and well maintained, it's at the top end of the market but we're still talking about a very cheap car.
Are their any reliability or cost foibles with these? As I understand it they are pretty much vice free and parts are cheap, so somebody reassure me that it really is THE MOST sensible car for her...
I know it's a floppy old school convertible, but that's fine for her and her usage and her mileage is low so the fuel economy doesn't matter. We've found a very clean 2005 car with extremely low mileage that appears to be very clean and well maintained, it's at the top end of the market but we're still talking about a very cheap car.
Are their any reliability or cost foibles with these? As I understand it they are pretty much vice free and parts are cheap, so somebody reassure me that it really is THE MOST sensible car for her...
Well we bought one, 53 plate on 117k miles or so. T5 manual. Couple of small cosmetic issues that would be even smaller if the previous owner wasn't a ham fisted t
t with a touch up pen, but we've had a very sensible quote to correct those. No mechanical issues to speak of, it has a blown door speaker (one ordered already from eBay) and the "all windows up/down" button is shagged. Aside from that it's lovely, it has the soft leather option and it really shows up the plasticy st in my 2008 C70.
fk me you are not wrong about it being soggy. My Mk2 C70 mostly feels like a fixed roof car, but the Mk1 really is a flexible friend. The whole car feels decidedly old school with the upright windscreen you can touch with your hand on the wheel, the thin steering wheel and the general "mechanical" feel to the driving experience. Noise levels are on another plain compared to the Mk2 C70 too. Great car for £2k though.
I might get her to join and start a readers cars thread!
t with a touch up pen, but we've had a very sensible quote to correct those. No mechanical issues to speak of, it has a blown door speaker (one ordered already from eBay) and the "all windows up/down" button is shagged. Aside from that it's lovely, it has the soft leather option and it really shows up the plasticy st in my 2008 C70.f
k me you are not wrong about it being soggy. My Mk2 C70 mostly feels like a fixed roof car, but the Mk1 really is a flexible friend. The whole car feels decidedly old school with the upright windscreen you can touch with your hand on the wheel, the thin steering wheel and the general "mechanical" feel to the driving experience. Noise levels are on another plain compared to the Mk2 C70 too. Great car for £2k though.I might get her to join and start a readers cars thread!
It wasn't wind rustling around bad seals/alignment or anything, I was quite careful to check for that, just a general level of NVH. Road noise, wind noise over the fabric roof, the effect on the internal pressure of the car when the wind blows and flexes the roof. NVH is one area that has moved on massively in the 25 years since this platform was introduced.
I've bought the strut brace from FRF Volvo in Swansea for £68 already, but she's not racing the thing so I think the soggyness won't be an issue.
I've bought the strut brace from FRF Volvo in Swansea for £68 already, but she's not racing the thing so I think the soggyness won't be an issue.
Parisien said:
Dme123, how did you get on with this Volvo, did you do a thread on it or more recent model?
P
Haven't made an owners thread for it, maybe I should. It'd have to be cleaned to get some decent photos, all I have are the Autotrader ones. I didn't make one for my Mk2 because who is interested in a relatively new FWD diesel Volvo? It's a boring but competent car that I will not shed a tear about when it's knackered and I throw it away.P
Anyway we bought a Mk1, she absolutely loves it and I thoroughly enjoy driving it. Picked up a late model, '04 model year (53 plate) T5 manual in dark metallic blue with a blue roof and the optional linen white soft leather. It looks fantastic, the darker colours flatter it and don't make it looked dated like silver seems to. I think the linen leather is a lot nicer than the vomity beige colour. For extra comedy value it comes with a CD-ROM based late 1990s spec sat nav system. I managed to find maps as recent as 2007 for it!
It had an immediate quick service and I fitted the volvo strut brace, I noticed the temperature dropping on fast roads then climbing back up so I changed the thermostat too. That was a bit of a shock as the late T5 engines require an entire housing rather than just a thermostat unit so it cost £110 or so. It has the optional sports exhaust so it sounds great, and it has the lowered dynamic chassis. Upgraded stereo in the GT models is very good, sound quality is better than a lot of the upgrade options available today, and I added a USB/SD Card Yatour box for £40 odd that means you're not stuck with CDs. The unit was missing it's 3 CD cassette so I picked one of those up and cleaned the laser lens to get it working again. It doesn't like CD-R discs but is happy enough with real CDs.
There is also a very, very common problem that 95% of them have where the roof rubs as it goes down and goes a bit bobbly in certain areas. It'll eventually wear through. The fix is available online and you just need some bungee cord to replace some elastic straps that go loose, but almost nobody seems to know this and all the roof repair places said it was unavoidable and required a new roof. You can use it as a negotiating point. Otherwise the roof mechanism seems to be very reliable and quite straightforward
Shopping for one was a chore; lots of tired dogs out there, and I think even the low mileage cherished single owner models probably need a bit of TLC at this stage. You need to budget £2k - £2,500 for a decent one but price seems to be little indication of quality.
It IS wobbly compared to a Mk2 C70, but I find it doesn't detract from the experience and as I've just commented on the bargain barge I have no problems making very rapid progress indeed. Even with a great deal of urban driving she's somehow getting 28mpg out of it on the OBC, so it is not inefficient either.
My daily driver is a 2008 Mk2 C70 D5 with a manual gearbox and a remap to a claimed 225bhp. Also been a great car for the last 50,000 miles / 2 years. Driving hers does throw into relief how f
king horrible a diesel engine is compared to a petrol, even a good diesel engine like the D5. In terms of all the objective measurements the Mk2 is a far better car, the ride is much better, NVH is far lower, hard top is more secure and gives better visibility, seats are more comfortable, the Dynaudio premium audio system is on another plane of hilarity, and it's significantly less wobbly. With all that said I find the Mk1 more enjoyable due to the far nicer engine, and the car has loads of character. A colleague has just bought a manual T5 Mk2 C70 and is over the moon with it, I suspect I'd be much more enthusiastic about mine if it was a petrol. Worth knowing that the Mk2 didn't get a 'proper' HPT T5 engine, it's the low pressure turbo 2.5.
I'd be perfectly happy with the Mk1 as a daily driver for the 20 - 30k a year I drive.
bbg1400 said:
I bought an 03 plate in red with 58k miles. Apart from the flexy/bouncy ride I quite enjoy it. I have fitted a strut brace to the front and upgraded the budget tyres to Conti 3's to cut down on the levels of understeer. I bought it to help keep the mileage down on my Ranger. It seems really slow after my last petrol car (Monaro CV8) but it makes progress of sorts.
A remap to 290-300bhp is only £400 odd away. If it's like the remaps on the D5 and LPT T5 models it adds a lot of mid range torque and improves the driveability of the car no end.
BigMon said:
Or someone stuck a BSR badge on there!
Whatever has been done to it, it isn't a rocket ship. It's OK to drive, though the scuttle shake is a bit interesting, but the auto box is not a fast one so it doesn't encourage me to thrap it.
I think I'll enjoy just pootling around in it with the top down.
That's what they do best really. The scuttle shake is a bit of a shock!Whatever has been done to it, it isn't a rocket ship. It's OK to drive, though the scuttle shake is a bit interesting, but the auto box is not a fast one so it doesn't encourage me to thrap it.
I think I'll enjoy just pootling around in it with the top down.
BigMon said:
Or someone stuck a BSR badge on there!
Whatever has been done to it, it isn't a rocket ship. It's OK to drive, though the scuttle shake is a bit interesting, but the auto box is not a fast one so it doesn't encourage me to thrap it.
I think I'll enjoy just pootling around in it with the top down.
i posted it as a way to quickly identify it had been remapped, if it has it will be 233bhp which isn't bad, i don't think anyone would think it was a rocket ship.Whatever has been done to it, it isn't a rocket ship. It's OK to drive, though the scuttle shake is a bit interesting, but the auto box is not a fast one so it doesn't encourage me to thrap it.
I think I'll enjoy just pootling around in it with the top down.
BigMon said:
Oh I see. Thanks for that.
Have any of you had the transmission fluid changed? Can you remember roughly what it cost?
It's quite easy to do yourself, but you MUST use the right oil. I think my local Volvo indy quoted £90 for a sump drop and refill, but the best way to do it is the "gibbons method" which you can google.Have any of you had the transmission fluid changed? Can you remember roughly what it cost?
I am personally extremely skeptical about the claimed power output from a remapped car. 233bhp from a 2.0 with a low pressure turbo. A power output Volvo required another 300cc and a high pressure turbo to achieve in the T5 (240bhp). Even against modern cars you'd never describe a C70 with that power output as "slow".
You'd doubtless get improvements from a remap but take the billy bulls
t headline figures with a pinch of salt.BigMon said:
I need to go through the service history thoroughly but I suspect I'll need to take it in for a cambelt and a transmission flush pretty shortly.
Cambelt is cheap and easy. I don't remember paying more than £200 including the Volvo kit from a decent indy using the Volvo kit.The 2.4i is cheap to buy but no more economical than a T5. It comes with a 5 speed manual rather than a 6 speed like the other models, but the auto is the same 5 speed AW box.
The 2.4 sounds nice and isn't slow, but the car weighs the thick end of 1800KG so it isn't fast and it isn't economical - reckon on 28-30mpg from a 2.4i or T5 manual if you drive it sedately. It'll be a LOT worse if you do a lot of driving in traffic. My manual D5 has a lifetime average of almost 44mpg and can get over 50mpg from a tank with lots of careful driving on motorways.
There was a raft of updates in late 2007 for the '08 model year, they have a different centre console and some changes to mirrors and dials. There are some useful updates under the skin and they squashed a few of the irritating bugs. One of which is the failure of the connector in the door that can cause screwy readings on the outside temperature display, which then makes the climate control act up and can stop the roof operating if the car thinks it's below or above certain temperature. Most are probably fixed now, but look out for it when you view.
Other than that they are largely vice free, the roof can make clonkings and creakings but they don't leak and they don't seem to break very often at all. They are heavy and the dampers will be shagged out by 90k and make them wallowy and a little nervous at speed. A set of Bilstein B4s and a couple of hours labour will have it sorted though.
I've had mine for over three years and covered about 70-80k in it, it's been a great car. Oddly when I was shopping for them there were a LOT of real dogs out there, often single owner from new cars but absolutely neglected and shagged out. I wondered at the time if that meant they didn't age well but mine is still great at 125k and 9 years old, bolsters are barely worn too.
The SE Lux comes with the superb Dynaudio stereo and is well worth having, although the 18" wheels do the ride no favours and I swapped mine out for a set of 17" wheels. The '08 MY updates add the ability to play MP3 files off the CDs in the changer, and they *should* all have a 3.5mm aux in, either in the centre console box or on early cars it seems to be behind the floating console. If it doesn't have one then you'll have a job getting any sort of MP3 player/phone playing through the stereo.
A colleague bought one off the back of borrowing mine for a couple of days, and he loves his too. Lubricate the roof seals to keep the creaking down and with the roof up you forget it's not just a fixed head coupe, the rigidity of the car is excellent.
The 2.4 sounds nice and isn't slow, but the car weighs the thick end of 1800KG so it isn't fast and it isn't economical - reckon on 28-30mpg from a 2.4i or T5 manual if you drive it sedately. It'll be a LOT worse if you do a lot of driving in traffic. My manual D5 has a lifetime average of almost 44mpg and can get over 50mpg from a tank with lots of careful driving on motorways.
There was a raft of updates in late 2007 for the '08 model year, they have a different centre console and some changes to mirrors and dials. There are some useful updates under the skin and they squashed a few of the irritating bugs. One of which is the failure of the connector in the door that can cause screwy readings on the outside temperature display, which then makes the climate control act up and can stop the roof operating if the car thinks it's below or above certain temperature. Most are probably fixed now, but look out for it when you view.
Other than that they are largely vice free, the roof can make clonkings and creakings but they don't leak and they don't seem to break very often at all. They are heavy and the dampers will be shagged out by 90k and make them wallowy and a little nervous at speed. A set of Bilstein B4s and a couple of hours labour will have it sorted though.
I've had mine for over three years and covered about 70-80k in it, it's been a great car. Oddly when I was shopping for them there were a LOT of real dogs out there, often single owner from new cars but absolutely neglected and shagged out. I wondered at the time if that meant they didn't age well but mine is still great at 125k and 9 years old, bolsters are barely worn too.
The SE Lux comes with the superb Dynaudio stereo and is well worth having, although the 18" wheels do the ride no favours and I swapped mine out for a set of 17" wheels. The '08 MY updates add the ability to play MP3 files off the CDs in the changer, and they *should* all have a 3.5mm aux in, either in the centre console box or on early cars it seems to be behind the floating console. If it doesn't have one then you'll have a job getting any sort of MP3 player/phone playing through the stereo.
A colleague bought one off the back of borrowing mine for a couple of days, and he loves his too. Lubricate the roof seals to keep the creaking down and with the roof up you forget it's not just a fixed head coupe, the rigidity of the car is excellent.
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