Questions about buying a 2009 XC60 (Volvo newbie)

[TipToeTiger]

Hi all,

I have my first child coming along in early January so I need to trade in my corsa for a family car that'll be safe for my family and fit a greyhound in the boot.

I have my eyes set on a Japanese import 2009 XC60 T6. I had a couple questions around the XC60 and was hoping someone with some experience with the car could share their knowledge.

1. How much is the up keep on an older XC60? I have looked at prices of services and they seem to range from around £250-400. Does this price seem right?

2. Are there any common problems with the car I should look out for when viewing?

3. From what I have read online the T6 seems like a reliable engine as long as it is serviced once a year. The camchain seems to be more reliable over the cambelt as well. Have you had any issues with the T engines?

4. Being a Japanese import I was wondering if anyone has had any issues with insurance? I popped the licence plate of the car I wanted to look at into compare the market and it looks as though the website picks up that it is imported and all the details are correct. The best policy seemed to be from Admiral, so I wanted to check if anyone has had success taking out a policy with Admiral for an imported car?

5. Also being an import I will need to get the dash changed from Japanese to English (The speedo is already in MPH). Is this something I could purchase at a local Volvo garage? Or would I need to use volvodiagnostics?

5. I guess overall do you think a 2009 XC60 is a good family car? I am kinda going car mad at the moment so I feel my judgement is foggy

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[RDesign4Life]

Well a 3.0 petrol T6 might be nice to drive and may even be reliable but at £600+ road tax and less than 20mpg I wouldn't go there!

A 2.4 D5 diesel can be had for similar money and road tax can be as low as £180 with real world mpg of 40+ mpg.

[Deck1ng]

A couple of my family members are driving Japanese imports with no problems at all. Don’t let that be an off putter. High excise duty and fuel prices / mpg are a different story, as previously said.

[JGEM]

Hi

Coming from NZ I've had a bit of experience with used car imports from Japan and also I've had an S80 with the non turbo version of the same 6 cylinder motor and have a 2009 XC60 D5 in our family fleet that we've done over 160,000km in.

NZ is infested with ex Japan used car imports and most of them are good value for money. (I've had good luck with them, as have many of my friends and colleagues). The way I see it, the sort of person in Japan who buys a Volvo is likely to be wealthy enough to afford to service them properly.

Fuel consumption is the biggest drawback of the 6 cylinder Volvos - with our non turbo S80 we were getting 15-16 litres / 100km for around town driving (which is under 20 UK mpg) I suspect the turbo would be slightly worse

If you can afford the fuel then they are a lovely smooth motor and make the D5 unit seem quite agricultural in comparison. The only case where I could justify buying a 6 cylinder Volvo would be a situation where I was driving many hundreds of miles a week on the open road so the engine was operating at its lowest fuel consumption, or if I was well off and didn't care about fuel cost.

There are a couple of uncommon but disastrously expensive failure points on the 6 cylinder motors, oil consumption and READ drive failure

Some of the early T6 motors had a problem with excessive oil consumption that requires expensive repairs. (from memory the solution involves replacement pistons and rings so basically uneconomic on a car that old.) Given the age of the car you are looking at any serious oil consumption problem should hopefully have been already sorted. Another peculiar and expensive issue with these 6 cylinder engines is failure of the READ (Rear end accessory drive) but again not that common but very bad luck if it happens to you.

In general Volvos from 2009 vintage not uncommonly have front windscreen sealing issues (check for damp carpet in the front) and premature radiator failure. Had both of those on our XC60

A 2009 vintage car is also likely at the stage where it needs stuff like shock absorber and suspension bush replacements and unless you are handy with tools and can do that sort of thing yourself then it can cost you a bit of coin. Likewise with brake pad and disc replacements - going DIY saves you serious coin.

Given the current fuel prices you should be able to bargain hard and drive the price down on a 6 cylinder Volvo. In NZ a 2009 T6 XC60 AWD imported from Singapore went for around NZ$7000. (GBP3500 approx) recently at auction.

[TipToeTiger]

Originally Posted by JGEM

Hi

Coming from NZ I've had a bit of experience with used car imports from Japan and also I've had an S80 with the non turbo version of the same 6 cylinder motor and have a 2009 XC60 D5 in our family fleet that we've done over 160,000km in.

NZ is infested with ex Japan used car imports and most of them are good value for money. (I've had good luck with them, as have many of my friends and colleagues). The way I see it, the sort of person in Japan who buys a Volvo is likely to be wealthy enough to afford to service them properly.

Fuel consumption is the biggest drawback of the 6 cylinder Volvos - with our non turbo S80 we were getting 15-16 litres / 100km for around town driving (which is under 20 UK mpg) I suspect the turbo would be slightly worse

If you can afford the fuel then they are a lovely smooth motor and make the D5 unit seem quite agricultural in comparison. The only case where I could justify buying a 6 cylinder Volvo would be a situation where I was driving many hundreds of miles a week on the open road so the engine was operating at its lowest fuel consumption, or if I was well off and didn't care about fuel cost.

There are a couple of uncommon but disastrously expensive failure points on the 6 cylinder motors, oil consumption and READ drive failure

Some of the early T6 motors had a problem with excessive oil consumption that requires expensive repairs. (from memory the solution involves replacement pistons and rings so basically uneconomic on a car that old.) Given the age of the car you are looking at any serious oil consumption problem should hopefully have been already sorted. Another peculiar and expensive issue with these 6 cylinder engines is failure of the READ (Rear end accessory drive) but again not that common but very bad luck if it happens to you.

In general Volvos from 2009 vintage not uncommonly have front windscreen sealing issues (check for damp carpet in the front) and premature radiator failure. Had both of those on our XC60

A 2009 vintage car is also likely at the stage where it needs stuff like shock absorber and suspension bush replacements and unless you are handy with tools and can do that sort of thing yourself then it can cost you a bit of coin. Likewise with brake pad and disc replacements - going DIY saves you serious coin.

Given the current fuel prices you should be able to bargain hard and drive the price down on a 6 cylinder Volvo. In NZ a 2009 T6 XC60 AWD imported from Singapore went for around NZ$7000. (GBP3500 approx) recently at auction.

Thanks for the information! Nice to hear you have had direct experience with a 2009 XC60. And yeah fuel consumption is a bit of an issue, I wanted to try and steer away from diesel as much as possible but I can't deny that the mpg would be a lot better.

Did you have any problem with getting insurance for your imports?

[JGEM]

Insurance is no big deal in NZ - for a 2009 car it's s getting to the stage whereby full insurance is costing 10% or more of the car value per year. It won't be far away that I just change to 3rd party insurance cover only (and keep my fingers crossed!)

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by RDesign4Life

Well a 3.0 petrol T6 might be nice to drive and may even be reliable but at £600+ road tax and less than 20mpg I wouldn't go there!

Not on a Jap import... standard rate applies I think £255 if over 10 years old?

[DAN AT ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi,
If you need any help with insurance at all then please feel free to drop me a line.
We have no problems insuring imported vehicles.
Regards,
Dan.

[GrahamHR]

Originally Posted by Tannaton

Not on a Jap import... standard rate applies I think £255 if over 10 years old?

I think you are correct, but it seems very unfair indeed for owners of such vehicles bought new in the UK who already had paid VAT in the new car price.

[yairw]

I got a 2010 XC60 T6, never thought about SUVs till I had my twins, then safety came to mind first, after watching a few videos about the XC60 safety, I was sure it's the car for me.
The doesn't like short trips and will consume lots of fuel on those, but long trips on the high way will drastically improve fuel consumption.

As said above, if you're not gonna work on the car yourself, it's gonna be very expensive to keep it as parts and labor are more expensive than other options