[s-cars] Volvo V70 R Wagon (NAC)

[Taka Mizutani]

Exactly my point- thank you, John.

With online listings, unless you have a car in question that is only made
in manual, you have to look for the photos these days- I've seen countless
automatic transmission cars listed as manual- makes no sense to me, as
manual is generally a negative point with most of the public. The worst is
when it's a car that is rare in manual form and listed incorrectly as
automatic- that makes it hard to find.

BMW heavily subsidizes their leasing program, so naturally, the resale
values of their used cars is terrible. The amount of things that go wrong
on a 5-yr. old BMW is unbelievable, thus further compounding their value
decline. That's why I can buy an '05-06 6 series for mid $20k range and a 7
for about the same. Not that I ever would. I'd never buy a E60 M5- the E39
is probably the last one I'd consider- I'm not a fan of having literally
hundreds of modules in the car. Why is there a module in each door just to
control the window and lock? Even if it's single-wire, CANBUS wiring can
still fail physically and then you're no better off than the old-fashioned
setup, other than the fact that you now have to replace a several hundred
dollar electronic module just to fix your power mirror.

I'm happy with the relative simplicity of my E36/8, even with the S54.



On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 1:52 PM, JC <jc at j2c3.com> wrote:

>  Yep. Taka that's a huge annoyance these days. Having been on a car search
> from sometime, bunches o' dealers have decided listing Autos as Manuals and
> then burying some BS weasel-word like "auto-manual" somewhere in the text
> is a clever way to get clicks and I guess they hope to get somebody
> interested enough to test drive and get them on the hook even if they
> really wanted the manny.  Drives me crazy.  I ignore almost everything else
> about a listing at this point and look for the pic of the shifter/pedals
> before I even bother going further.
>
> Re: the newer 5ers, they are notoriously "great driver but impending
> moneypit", and many believe the Motorwerks has a significant problem
> looming as the resale/residual values for mid/late-2000's cars across the
> lineup is starting to tank.  So far it only started to bite them but will
> likely start hurting the leasing rates soon, then trickle-down to outright
> buyers interest as they start to be concerned about trade-in values.  Takes
> a long time for that to develop but we're getting to about the right time.
> Huge BMWCCA topic of debate these days... Try looking at E60 M5 resale
> prices.  Looks affordable and tempting... as long as you have a fat
> maintenance endowment...
>
> On 1/22/2012 1:26 PM, Taka Mizutani wrote:
>
> I found 9 nationwide, only 3 that you can confirm visually that they are
> truly 3-pedal manual transmissions. Without that, you have no idea whether
> or not the car is a 6-speed steptronic or a real manual. Of course, they
> will pop up from time to time because they're still coming off lease and
> are available if you do a nationwide Manheim search. You'll almost never
> see a V70R on Manheim any more.
>
> No doubt that the 535xi Touring is a much better driving car. Also, there
> is a huge difference in price- you're talking about comparing a car that is
> in the $10-17k range versus a car that is $35-50k. For three times the
> money, I surely hope that it's a better car.
>
> For $50k I'd be looking at a late W211 E63 wagon, CTS-V wagon or a Cayenne
> Turbo.
>
> I'm not saying you're wrong, just that there is a significant difference in
> power potential between the N54 and N55.
>
> Taka
> t_information
>
>
>
> -------------------------
> *John J. Cunningham*
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