Getting my tax return soon and really want to get a sporty sedan or wagon again. I had to give up my beloved 89 Max a couple years ago and really miss it. So, I was thinking to either track down my old car and try to buy it back. If the guy is willing to sell it will probably be around $1100, but it's still the VG AutoTragic. Or I could try to find a nice VE5 like I was planning to do, but they are hard to come by. Otherwise I saw recently a nice Silver on Black (my favorite color combo) Volvo 850 Turbo Wagon for sale locally that might be the best combo for me (color, turbo performance, upgradeability, wagon practicality, looks). So, what do you guys think? The money I have to work with should be around $1000-$2000 or so.

 

The Volvo's aren't too bad of a car. Just gotta make sure it was well taken care of, or else you'll be sinking money into getting it up to par. Most of them are automatics, but there were a few produced with manuals.

 

An older Volvo turbo really seems like a potential huge can of worms unless you can for sure verify the history/background of the car, but even at that it still seems like a potential can of worms. I've always found Volvo interiors/dashboard layouts hideous so I personally wouldn't want one just on those grounds alone.

 

get a VE5 dude it'l be way more fun to drive and its still got plenty of cabin room and trunk space since your going for practicality aswell. Also im surprised you didnt mention the ve5 for looks and the volvo instead but everyone has their own taste.

But yeah a nice drop with some lightweight 17's a warpspeed y pipe and cai your good to go its as fun as an M3 . Also really really reliable cars with dirt cheap maintenance....not saying the volvo isnt reliable I just know the Ve is a great bang for the buck.

 

if you want another alternative try a Cressida, comes in sedan or wagon and you get RWD out of it. or try to find a 1st gen Max (Datsun 810)

 

Yeah the 850's are funky like that. When the car was redesigned and named the S70 (sedan) and V70 (wagon) they did a nice job modernizing the interior.

The one thing I didn't like about the 850's and S/V 70's before they had another redesign in 2000, is that they pitch and roll quite a bit. I would definitely want to upgrade the suspension. I used to work at the Volvo processing facility at the port here where the cars came in for a few years, so I drove alot of Volvo's.

 

I own a Volvo 850 T5 and I own the 3rdgen Maxima . I love both cars but the Volvo is just a better vehicle. The Volvo 850 T5 is a 2.3L 5cylinder and if maintained properly can last just as long as a well maintained 3rdgen Max. They handle better, better braking system, better interior, better exterior(bigger aftermarket selection) and of course much faster. There's also an 850R model which comes with another 25hp from the factory. The S70/V70 is basically the same as the 850 but a little newer(started in '98). I know I'm going to here some shyt for this post but I have to be honest. I got both cars sitting in my driveway, I will say this though...Volvo's cost more when it comes to buying parts. Do your research before you buy anything and if you really want to buy a Maxima then buy a 5.5generation with the 6speed. If you do decide to buy a Volvo then make sure the timing belt was done and that the PCV system was done. Both the timing belt and PCV system can get pricey if you not qualified to replace yourself. I'd go for a stick shift with whatever you get, good luck!!

 

Thanks Guys for your input so far and to Shiloh for the positive input on the 850. I had the '89 Max GXE for about 8.5 years and learned everything about fixing, maintaining, and modding cars from that Max. It was the perfect color combo for me (Silver on Black cloth), had all the power options (HUD, DigiDash and Climate Control, Moonroof, Pwr Seats...), and I even loved the power even though it wasn't much. I had planned to swap it to a VE5 LSD trans and rear disk brakes, and maybe go turbo at some point but had to get rid of it before I could go any farther with it. (EDIT: I just talked with the guy who ended up with it and he may be willing to sell it. I could probably get it for $1000 or so.)

Since then I've owned a '98 V70 XC, also Silver on Black, but had to sell that to pay off a loan and the wife wanted a newer Sienna Minivan. Now I just drive the old '92 Toyota Previa minivan which is nice as far as minivans go, but it's a work vehicle and no performance sedan! 2 Minivans isn't good for the gas budget either.

I just came across a '92 VE5 in excellent shape. It has been owned by the same family and well maintained since 1995 and only has 121K miles on it. It's a few hours away and the guy wants a little over $2000, but it may be a good deal. It's white on charcoal cloth. The cell phone pics he sent me look nice.

The Volvo I was looking at is local and the guy says it has been well maintained but needs a little TLC. It's a Silver on black 1994 850 Turbo Wagon with ~190k asking price $2000 obo. So, I may look at it, but I am leaning towards one of the Maximas.

 

Would you elaborate these mods? I also have a 92 SE manual. I am interested in how to do these mods and their cost.

 

Check in the stickies.

 

Get the T5, people who say they are boring obviously have absolutely NO experience with them.

 

I was amazed at the complete lack of aftermarket parts for the Vulva. Or they are really expensive.

Unless there's a size requirement, there would seem to be alot of 4-door choices out there.

 

do you REALLY love a 3rd gen that much to get another one?
the 3rd gens are quite "vintage" at this stage. parts are scarce, aftermarket is near 0.

why not a 5th gen or something (if you love maximas)?
otherwise the typical maxima to infiniti G upgrade seems to be the choice here..LOL

 

but the most he wants to spend is $2000 . i think the maxima is the better choice than a volvo. or what about a infiniti g20? i have even seen some vw passat vr6 for under $2000.

 

Yah, right now it's a price thing. I also saw a '96 200sx SE-R 5spd w/117k but they're asking $2000 and it definitely needs suspension work, help with the interior, and a paint job (faded Red - uggh), and I'm not sure about the 5th gear pop-out. I'm amazed at how much old used cars are bringing these days!

 

Yep, Silver on black 5.5gen 6spd with HLSD and Meridian Package and TE if I can get it, but that's $7k plus. For now the $2k price range is what I'm looking at.

 

maxima for sure, volvos are expensive and harder to find parts for... and a pain in the *** to fix

 

Get the VE5. U won't hate yourself in the end.

 

I can see you have both the '02 SE and '93SE. How do they compare?

 

HA Ha ha Late afternoon and night . Still haven't driven my VE much since I finally got it acting right after my rebuild. Though I have every mod known to the 3rd gen except a rear strut bar and turbo. My 5.5 is pretty much stock except for coil overs, front strut bar, CAI and grounding kit. 5.5 has more torque through out the pwr band btw its an AT. Still fun and I can stomp on quite a few but I usually use it to cruise. My VE5 is more considered my toy. Torque is moderate down low but picks up in 3 especially 4th gear (where the magic happens). Very nimble at least to me. With independent rear suspension unlike the beam set up on the 5.5 I don't experience chassis hop in the rear when throttling through a turn. That was another reason why I wanted a 3rd gen besides a VE 5speed. These cars are worth it. Back when looking for a VE 3rd gen everyone I came across the owners replied with, "Its not for sale". Now I see why and neither are my 2. I'll have other cars come and go, but my Maxs will never go anywhere no matter the age or how rough times get.

 

The T5 Wagon is a great car for the family and a little spirited driving. 190k is getting kind of high but if the owners maintained it then it's got plenty of life left. But if that VE5 has only 121k and was well maintained then that's a good choice, regardless they won't get 2000 for it. Volvos are more expensive and a little more involved when it comes to certain maintenance/repairs. The 850's/S70/V70's aren't as bad to work on as some of the other Volvo models. The 3rdgen is getting old and there is nothing out there as far as mods. The turbo model 850, R model 850 and Platinum model 850 have tons of mods available. Check out (ipdusa.com, FCPgroton.com, ect..) you'll see all kinds of stuff available for the 850/s70/v70. The wagon(estate) model looks sick when done right.

 

Right now I'm debating in my mind whether to get my old '89 Max back for around $1k and go with all the mods I had wanted to do to it before I had to let it go 2 yrs. ago (btw, it still has the Eibach Pro Kit springs on the front along with Koni Reds in front, I never got the rears installed but have them in my shed, and it has a PR Cold Air Intake, and WSP Y-Pipe, and Blehmco Ground Kit). Or I could still get that '93SE5 for around $2000, but it's stock and white. I prefer Silver. I might be able to get a built VE motor and VE5 trans swap stuff to put into the '89, but obviously that's a lot more time, effort, and money. The pay off would be a long time vision coming to fruition. The possible down side would bee going "backwards" in terms of the energy of old stuff coming back into my life. I've enough old stuff to move out.

The original inspiration/parallel vision can be seen here, but of course applied to a 3rd gen Maxima:

http://www.npoc.co.uk/forum/january-...topic3147.html

I'll go see that '94 850 Turbo Wagon on Friday, so we'll see. Thanks again for the input. Keep it coming if you'd like :-)

 

Personally, it's difficult to compare a boosted Volvo to an n/a Maxima.

I do like the look and design of the 3rd gen, and have driven a few. They're good cars, and I like them. They're starting to become more scarce as well. Every once and a while i'll see one in traffic.

 

dood.
buy the old one.
either drive it, or part it out, profit and get the volvo.

 

I'll go see the old Max today and the Volvo tomorrow. I don't think I can buy both, but maybe ;-)

 

good luck, keep us posted

 

We have an '00 Max and our neighbor has an '01 volvo non-turbo wagon, both over 150k mi.

His volvo's Cat gave up the ghost. He ordered a "direct fit" but when we went to put it in, we found the factory cat is integrated into the exhaust manifold. Nobody makes an aftermarket replacement and the volvo dealer's price was $1,274.00.

That effectively totaled the car and put them in a real bind because bills from his wife and son's separate life threatening health issues over three years became a day to day struggle.

Lady luck smiled on me during a work trip to Bristol, TN. A volvo nut hooked me up with his volvo guru who didn't believe me and out of curiosity schlepped up to his semi trailer full of drive trains to see for himself. He let me have it for $150. That dealer was nice and guided us through the installation nuances. Now a year later the volvo is still on the road, but I've still got a grudge against volvo.

Go for the Max.

 

Well, I just saw the ol'89 Max. It certainly was nostalgic :-\ The interior is really clean except for some cracks forming on the dash. The paint is more faded but the body panels look good except where my wife had backed into the middle of the front passenger door years ago. It's clean and looks like a good base to start. We'll see after looking at the Volvo tomorrow whether or not it will make the grade. I have a VE5 trans swap lined up and maybe a whole VE engine swap and other goodies as well. Of course, it all depends on the budget. Hmmm....

 

I have the '89GXE with digi dash, HUD, sonar suspension and I don't see myself ever selling her. You can always Boost the vg motor and swap in a m/t.

 

Yah, that's the idea. I never wanted to sell her in the first place, and actually I didn't. I had worked on a ladies car. She was kind of a friend, and an accident happened where some brake clean I had used to clean up some oil spill caught on fire and we couldn't get her hood open soon enough to put it out so a bunch of her hoses and wires got melted. Instead of dealing with a law suit and got my old Max running (it had had some bad injectors) and gave it to her. But of course I have missed it a lot since then.

Like I said, as long as another better car doesn't come along, I'm planning to buy it back from the guy she sold it to. He doesn't need it now anyway since he is dealing with some medical issues and is driving another car right now. Besides, the starter went out on him and the car has been sitting for months. The engine had had only less than 100k on when I had it, so besides whatever the sitting has done to it, it should be in good shape mechanically. But I won't know until I get the starter fixed and get it running. I got some pics which I will post soon also.

I definitely fell in love with the full GXE package (digidash & cc, HUD, sonar suspension, etc...), so I don't think another Max without those things would do it for me. So, again, we'll see.... :-)

 

A starter install is easier than a oil and filter change.

 

So you got ur money back. Right? Then what you waiting for? Buy it back.

 

Money back? No. I gave her the car to avoid a lawsuit. I never got a penny. I would be buying back the car with tax refund money, so obviously I want to get it as cheap as possible. The guy wants $1000 but I may be able to talk him down to $800 or $900.

 

no no no Tax refund money is what I meant. If u got that in hand he would be a fool to turn it down or cruel bastard.

 

How in the world did this happen?

 

if i were buying anything in that price range it would probably be between an 89-92 toyota or a 95 max

 

The Volvo. Get the Volvo. Yes some parts are a little bit more expensive. But lets put it in terms everybody understand on here.

A stock VE in good codition will dyno at 160whp and torque about the same. and a car that weighs about 3100lbs, its not bad.

A stock 850 turbo will dyno over 200whp and 210wtq. And before anybody says "its a volvo so it weighs as much as the moon." Wrong it wieghs 3200lbs. Stock for stock it will run with a 5.5 gen.

And its safe on top of that. To me this is a no contest volvo wins. My friend has had 3 of them now, they almost never break. And they have been able to just walk away from my modded 4th gen with out issue.

 

Battery was bad on her old 1990 Celica GT. Got it to the parts store. Changed the battery. Saw that the oil pressure switch was leaking. Got a new one, installed it, cleaned it up with brake clean, didn't notice that the starter was down below under where the oil and brake clean had dripped. Shut the hood (which is hard to get open), started up the car, noticed smoke, thought it was just stuff burning off until I saw some flames, tried to get the hood open, rushed inside the parts store to get a fire extinguisher, ran back out and finally got the hood open, put out the fire, someone had seen the flames and called the fire department. Had to deal with that.

At first the lady chocked it up to an accident but then later threatened to sue because she didn't have any money and blamed me for the fire even though there was plenty of old oil from her car that contributed to it. Anyway, long story short, I gave her the Max to compensate because I didn't want to deal with trying to fix all the crap with her burned engine bay. She had her daughter's boyfriend drive it for a while and then he broke up with the girl and then went off and sold it to someone else. I don't even know if the lady got any money out of it. Oh well!

But the guy is nice who ended up with it. He just doesn't need it now.

I saw the Volvo yesterday. It's nice, at least as nice shape as the old Maxima, but it does need a lot of work. Probably the oil breather system, it has a misfire and engine light is on, oil leaking around rear valve cover and under driver's side-cam seals I think, smells like oil in the cabin after a little while, interior lights don't come on properly, headliner is shot, back driver's side window doesn't go up with master switch, right corner light missing, dash lights don't work on center console/ climate control, info computer doesn't work due to aftermarket CD changer installed in glove compartment, leather is cracked but not ripped yet, some scraping sound from the brakes probably from sitting for 4 months, some slight vibration when driving- feels like motor mount, don't know when the timing belt was changed last, has 186k miles. The guy may take 1200-1300. Has nice power. decent body and interior.

It may be a toss up b/w the Max and Volvo based on "feeling". They both need work and are in a similar price range. I just feel more attached to the Maxima for obvious reasons. It's my "baby" who got away - my unfinished project. So, we'll see if sentimentality wins out or if something more practical happens in the end.

 

That might be what should move the scales in favor of the Maxima unless you are comfortable working with the Swede/Euro car or know a good Volvo mechanic that charges reasonable fees.

The other factor to consider is insurance. My Volvo's insurance runs about 30% more than my Maxima's for just liability—maybe it is the turbo.

I have 91 SE with 190k and a 07 S60 2.5t with 80k. I obviously can't compare these two cars due to the age and miles. I've always driven Japaneses cars along with an occasional vehicle from the 3 US car makers, but I picked the Volvo up by chance 9 months ago when I was able to buy it for great deal at $10k. Since then I've just been enamored by the Volvo and will certainly have to consider a Volvo for a future purchase.

 

That sounds like it's gonna add up and cost you to get it right. If you feel comfortable putting another 2ish thousand dollars into it, then buy it, if it's what you want. Yes it will be faster, but is that what you're looking for, or just something to drive?