For me, a big part of buying a car is the adventure.
I’d seen this C70 T5 for sale in Plymouth, which is a good 3 hours from home, but Plymouth is almost Cornwall, and I fancied a day out. I also thought it would be a good one to offer as an alternative to the Ford Escort for the Geoff Special on Sunday, so we ditched the kids and made a day of it.
It was a 6.30am train, and in the stress of the morning I somehow managed to get us on completely the wrong train.
MrsGeoff was ready to kill me, the tickets we had were advance single meaning we would have to buy new tickets! Thankfully the ticket man (what do you call a ticket man on a train?!) took pity and helped us catch up with the train we were supposed to be on, then every time he walked past us for the next few hours he would check that MrsGeoff hadn’t killed me.
The seller picked us up from the station, we had a good chat and did the deal then drove to the shops to pick up a disposable bbq and some supplies… then on to Looe with the roof down. We spent the afternoon on the beach, cooked up some tucker (RIP Steve Irwin – can you guess what we have been watching with the kids?!), got our feet in the sea and then when the sun went down started the 200 mile drive home.
I think for me that’s my kick, and that’s what Geoff Buys Cars has been all about. Once the car is back home I’ve had my fun and want it gone to make way for the next one, like an addict chasing a high! That’s all well and good but it means I do end up with cars double parked and deals in the pipeline…
The C70 itself was really well behaved, apart from when I parked it up in Looe and clearly hadn’t pulled the handbrake hard enough or left it in gear. Thankfully I’d forgotten something so had to go back to the car, which wasn’t where I left it, as it had rolled out almost into the middle of the road, with some bemused spectators wondering who owned the feral Volvo.
It’s a 2.3 litre full fat T5 with manual gearbox, a remap and an LPG conversion. On the road it feels well behaved but it really does fly when you get the hammer down, I have to admit I’ve not pushed it yet as MrsGeoff kept protesting. With LPG still a fair bit cheaper than petrol, this is quite an interesting proposition. It’s not the cleanest C70 in the world, and it looks like the weight of the tank has sagged the rear springs – it’s got a full set of high quality springs in the boot to sort that out.
I guess this is the thing with the car market right now, if you’re happy to compromise on age, mileage and where the car is, if you’re happy driving an older car and doing your own maintenance and living with the odd bit of the unexpected, you can save yourself money and drive something unusual. If you’ve read this far then you probably know this.
For me, there’s a magical era in the used car market that spans the late 1990s to the early 2000s. These cars are modern enough to be reliable, relatively economical and old enough to be maintained by the home mechanic. After about 2007 it seems that repair costs and electrical complexity seem to spiral. How many people do we know who have had shockingly expensive bills to repair things that previously didn’t cost that much money? Clutches costing £2,000 and more, expensive DPF filter problems, complex radio systems and sat navs that barely worked when new and are a nightmare 15 years later.
Let’s take MrsGeoff’s BMW 1 Series as an example. Sure, it’s £30 per year to tax and it’ll do 60mpg compared to the £250 a year tax and 45mpg of my Volvo 850 TDI… but the BMW has keyless push button start, a media system I cannot fathom, a sat nav system that’s already dated, sensors for every possible vehicular ailment and a complex, twin turbo power engine that looks daunting even if you know your EGR from your elbow. How big are the bills going to be when the clutch goes, or when the stop start refuses to start the car, or when the push button starter gives up? It’s scary, and that’s not even a new car by modern standards, it’s a 2014. How about these petrol hybrid cars, did you hear the story about the gent who asked Mercedes-Benz how much a replacement battery was on his E Class, only to be told it was £15,000? What happens to the cars when owners can’t justify these bills?
On the other hand, with the Volvo, it’s all tried and tested technology, the electronics are simple by comparison, parts are easy enough to find and the maintenance bills are manageable.
Like I’ve said in my videos, the electronic burden on modern cars is huge, and it largely comprises functions that we really didn’t need in the first place. It’s as though car manufacturers reached ‘peak car’ in the early to mid 2000s, and since then every new addition and development hasn’t actually improved the car as an actual car. Do we need push button start, electronically retracting tow bars, electronically opening tail gates, door handles that disappear into the car, rear view cameras instead of mirrors, park assist and lane assist and all the other ‘driver aids’. What’s wrong with driving a car, opening a boot, learning to park and paying attention?
My Volvo 850 (and the C70) has power steering, heated seats, air conditioning, cruise control and a decent stereo. For me, that’s all I want from a car. You might not be bothered about heated seats, but I gotta admit I do love a warm bum…
This kind of car ownership is under threat. Those of us who own and run older cars can feel the push from all sides. Fuel is getting more expensive, there’s tax incentives for more modern cars, clean air zones are expanding pushing out our personal vehicles in favour of brand new, low emissions cars.
We are being pushed out of our old cars under the guise of saving the planet, to get us out of older petrol and diesel cars and into newer, low emissions cars, but it’s a false economy. As MrsGeoff quite rightly said just the other day, as yet another brand new electric car (a huge SUV, might I add) cruised past us… ‘why do we need new cars? We have plenty already!’ And she’s right. We don’t need new cars at all, there’s enough on the road for everyone if we just looked after what we already have. We could shut down new car production tomorrow, and people could make do with what’s on the market… but that’s not what people want.
Do you want to save the planet and have really, really low running costs? Look no further than the small, diesel powered cars of the early 2000s. I once had a Renault Clio 1.5 DCI, a cute little 3 door in black with the iconic 5 spoke alloy wheels… It would do 78mpg average. What about the little Citroen C3 with the HDI engine? Running costs don’t come much cheaper than that.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe the planet will be saved by mining all the precious metals to put in the batteries of the electric cars that will probably last a decade at best. Maybe the most environmentally friendly thing to do is change my car every three years for a brand new one. Maybe my old, trusty, family Labrador of a Volvo 850 should be replaced by some gigantic, £400+ per month hybrid petrol thing that’s going to need a £12,000 battery replacement in a couple or three years.
For now, I’m going to continue using and enjoying my old cars.
I like the idea that I can fill the tank full of dinosaur juice and drive as far as I like, and for this summer at least, that’s what I intend to do. I can see a future where you’re either not allowed, or can’t afford, to fill your car with dinosaur juice and drive the length of the country on an evening. We’ve seen the world moving in that direction, and it’s highly concerning. We as motorists are in for an interesting future – my advice is to enjoy it while we still can, and while we can still afford it!
I hope the winner of the Volvo C70 T5 GT feels the same, and that this old, high mileage Swedish convertible has many miles of use in it before it’s traded in for an electric car.