Lets see, eight year old volkswagen with a motor they sold a dozen of in this country and a whole bunch of AWD stuff to break. Offer them one dollar.
That was my initial thought.... but I liked it and it had all the options the Mrs. requires!! The search continues! What's the best AWD wagon of that vintage that's not a Volvo?
Sorry still a Volvo.. V70 R AWD It's as close to a non-volvo you are going to find... Blast of a car..
Here are some video of us ice racing a V70R AWD WAGON... fun car! http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=442949
I've been looking hard at 3 Series BMW. E46. Not many around and too many of them have awd that I don't want. I'd be interested to hear why you shouldn't buy one. Plenty of 5 Series around.
Was looking into those also. Found one fairly local, but the miles are scaring me off on this as well.... http://clients.automanager.com/014700/VD.html?VID=c38c11359e0c984d98cf0d3debe9545a Maybe I should just save some more clams before I decide to take the plunge.
It was... There are worse things to have to be doing on a saturday in the middle of winter in NH.. My buddy Dag (who owned that V70R) now has an S4 with the V6 .. I got to take it for a spin a couple weeks ago... I can't believe what kind of power they get out of that 2.7...
They must be more common up here.. I see the E46 wagons for sale on Craigslist for private sale more often than any other BMW wagon...
Agree! I test drove one(S4, don't remember year or specifics) with my buddy before he finally picked up a 300c with a Hemi and AWD.
A buddy had one and we swapped cars at an autocross. Not a great autox car (too wide, steering too slow) but they sure will march! His got totaled in a freak accident [guy hit it while parked and tore the LR wheel off] and he wound up in an XC90......
That is a little high priced. $9k on the high end. From what I've read, 100k should be a sweet spot. Just old enough to have had the things done that go wrong about 80k, cooling system and control arms. I'm being picky too. I want a manual with 100-120k, preferably with the sport and premium packages, no awd and I want it in any color besides silver, dark blue and preferably not black. It should be a California or desert SW car. $6-7k. I noticed they are higher priced in the Southwest. Usually fairly cheap in the midwest. Check Autotrader for guidelines. I might settle for less than pristine too the way the lowlife scumbags ding cars around here in the parking lots. I'm avoiding 5 Series, I'll give up the space for better mileage.
http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1736/the-death-of-the-station-wagon/ The news came like a blow to the gut for this child of 1950s suburbia: Volvo, the company most associated with station wagons for the last 20 years, will stop selling wagons in the U.S. The market is drying up. Farewell, Family Truckster, farewell (Photo: Ford Motor Co.) The Volvo wagon had been on life support for months. After dropping the larger V70 Volvo in 2010, Doug Speck, CEO of Volvo Cars of North America, told Automotive News he was giving the V50 another year because there "is a bit more energy in the small wagon segment." Not enough, apparently. Volvo, which was sold to China's Geely in 2010, sold just 480 V50s last year, about two per dealer. Other makers have been quietly dropping wagons for years as their customers flee to more utilitarian vehicles. Edmunds.com, the online-car buying site, lists 115 kinds of SUVs and 92 types of crossovers but only 31 varieties of station wagon. Even that count is suspect. It includes a Ford Flex, which is a minivan in disguise, and the bizarre Dodge Caliber. Growing up in a Connecticut commuter town after World War II in an active family of seven, station wagons were the only practical forms of conveyance. Ford Country Squires, with their acres of imitation wood, were particularly prized. Sportier owners displayed yacht flags representing their initials on the driver's side door. Black Labradors and Golden Retrievers were practically standard equipment. At 16, I took my driver's test in a brown Plymouth Suburban wagon with a rear-facing third seat and a three-speed manual transmission. Luckily, parallel parking wasn't part of the exam. Somewhat later, the Plymouth's transmission linkage developed the habit of seizing up when it got warm. The driver had a choice of wrapping his hands in rags, diving under the hood, and shaking the rods until they freed up -- or driving home in first gear. I shudder to think how we flirted with disaster in those pre-safety-conscious days. On long trips, my parents would fold down the wagon's seats and outfit the passenger compartment with pillows and blankets, where we slid around, un-seat-belted. Long before Ford got out of the wood-grain-paneling business in 1991, Volvos had become the wagon of choice. Safety had emerged an issue, and so had the environment. Volvos had the twin advantages of looking sensible and being upscale at the same time. It was a boxy European import that looked as wholesome as a bowl of granola. Wagons were part of Volvo's DNA. As the story went, the reason Volvo sedans looked so boxy is that designers would style the wagon first, and then cut off the tailgate and add a trunk. What happened to the Volvo wagon is a classic case of automotive Darwinism. American buyers first turned away from station wagons during the 1973 oil crisis. Their extreme length, emphasized by long rear overhangs to accommodate a third seat, made them natural targets. In the 1980s, the minivan came along and stole the people-mover business. SUVs moved to the fore in the 1990s. Far more utilitarian, they offered a lot more cargo space, a command seating position, and four-wheel-drive. And the 2000s were the decade of the crossover, combining the best features of both van and SUV. With their combination of capability and capacity, they remain one of the fastest-growing segments. Despite its enduring image for safety and solidity, Volvo has been behind the automotive curve for decades. With annual sales of fewer than 400,000 cars, it never enjoyed the scale it needed to support R&D or frequent model changes. It was slow to move production out of high-cost Sweden and never built cars in the U.S., its largest market. Product innovation came slowly too. Volvo never built an SUV, it didn't get around to all-wheel-drive until well after Audi and Subaru, and didn't introduce its first crossover until 1998. Nor did its 1999 sale to Ford help matters. Neither party was able to benefit. Ford tried to integrate Swedish engineering into its cars but found it expensive and prone to weightiness. And Ford technology never made it across the Atlantic, likely because of an unwillingness to share and fear of diluting Volvo's image. Volvo probably did itself a disservice by running testimonials from owners who drove their Volvos for years and years. When you put a million miles or more on a car, it limits the opportunity for repeat business. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes still offer wagons for sale in America, although they don't call them that. At Audi, "avant" is the preferred designation; BMW uses "touring," and Mercedes likes "estate." Sport wagons, though, have never made much of an impact. Cadillac's CTS is a spectacular offering, but its tightly tailored body and rear liftgate have limited its appeal. Volvo plans to soldier on with its well-regarded line of crossovers: the XC60, XC70, and XC90. Before I get carried away by nostalgia, caution should be observed in writing off an entire vehicle segment, because they do have a habit of coming back to life. The 1976 Cadillac Eldorado was lionized as the last American convertible -- until Lee Iacocca brought out the 1982 Chrysler LeBaron ragtop. The station wagon may rise again. By Alex Taylor III, senior editor at large
2001 540iT for sale near me... 55,000 miles... stored at a summer house... asking $17.5 on CL.. Last of a dying breed... Wish I had a good excuse to buy it.. color is so-so... but everything else makes me drool... What a classic: http://www.kensingtonautoworks.org/show.php?id=9&category=&make=BMW&model=&srt=make%20ASC&p=5&submit=Search&page=1 CL Post: http://nh.craigslist.org/cto/2198363073.html