Upkeep is expensive on the R's, mostly due to the abundance of electronics and sensors. The shocks are pricey, with delicate accelerometers at each corner, and the high-output motor can wear out the collar in the angle gear (front diff) causing failure, but it's not terminal in any way.
You can build a fun alternative with a T5 for sure, but the 2.5T cars give you another option. A larger turbo and exhaust, plus an engine remap will give you 300+ HP and even more torque (the 2.5T motor has an extra 0.5 point of compression.) The 05+ 2.5T is basically the same motor with a tiny, tiny turbo. You can get them with AWD or FWD, but sadly, no manual transmission.
The Haldex system seems to suffer from faint praise in the performance-oriented media, but it works flawlessly for most. The cars of this era can put up to around 90% of the torque to a single wheel through coordinated use of the driveline clutch and traction control.
Have you or her driven one? I thought I wanted a V70 until I drove it. It was a 2004(?) T5, automatic. Plenty of power, great looks, lots of space, really lame interior and felt like it weighed 7,000 pounds. Depends what you are coming from I guess, I arrived for the test drive in my early 70's BMW. I ended up in a forester, which drove like a Miata in comparison.
NecroBump!
11 years after this thread was posted, I just got offered one of these on the VERY cheap. My nephew is a Volvo tech and he's going over the car now. I don't have much info other than it's a 2nd Gen V70R with the automatic and high (300k+) miles. It's been dealer maintained but has some "questionable repairs" that he's investigating. It does run, drive, and stop OK. I have always liked the looks and the idea of these, and have had a hankerin' for a cool wagon for ages. I have a soul-sucking commute and having something comfortable with an automatic that I can sub in here and there for my Forte GT would be nice, and I could use it as a dog hauler as well.
What do I need to know?
Only pic I have so far:
Alas... I got pics of the "questionable" repairs, and I'm going to pass. Both front strut towers had significant rust and were booger welded back into a vague strut tower shape and there are alignment issues as a result. But I'm on the lookout anyway, as my nephew does encounter the V70R (and S60R) from time to time.
Doesn't Pete have some sort of R Volvo? Like an S60R? I can't remember if that's more or less the sedan version of this, but he might be a good resource. Maybe he will pop in here.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Yikes, yuck!
Pics of said "questionable repairs":
I was also told that the bolt holes were slotted to achieve proper alignment, which is not great. It's too bad, because the rest of the car was in decent shape. Again, these do come up from time to time; I passed on a VERY clean S60R earlier this year because the timing wasn't right.
How the heck did they get one of these to rust?
If it's "VERY" cheap, it's probably worth itself in parts, assuming that parts are any good. The sedan version has been extremely good to me but an amazing number of components are R specific because the interior just had to be that nice, and I think Mitsubishi sold more Evo IXs than Volvo sold P2Rs in the US, so it can be fun.
I mean, that looks pretty easy to fix. Especially with a factory brace bar to get width measurements from... Cut towers out of JY car and slap them in!
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Because Massachusetts. Vehicles find new and creative ways to rust in Massachusetts.
iansane said:I mean, that looks pretty easy to fix. Especially with a factory brace bar to get width measurements from... Cut towers out of JY car and slap them in!
That bar is rubber mounted to the strut towers and the mounting holes are slotted besides.
It's not a strut tower brace, it's the bracket that the upper engine torque mount attaches to.
In reply to iansane :
If I didn't already have two other questionable projects that require extensive rust repair (again, because Massachusetts), I would have at least gone to look at it. But doing a strut tower swap on a Volvo wasn't in my 2025 project car plans. Again, unless this becomes free, which I doubt it will, I'm going to pass.
Tony Sestito said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Because Massachusetts. Vehicles find new and creative ways to rust in Massachusetts.
Does MA have vehicle inspections? I can see that kind of rust growing if someone good naturedly ground a minor problem away to pass inspection, destroying the galvanizing, and slapping paint over it, which would rust very quickly.
Reason I say that is I don't see any underhood rust. That rust looks like it was caused by user error.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Oh yes, we have safety inspections here. They typically don't look under the hood at anything though. Usually, they will jack the front end up and give things a shake. If things are loose, insta-FAIL. Any obvious structural rust (like truck frame rust) will typically get the ol' "Type R" sticker as well. But if the body looks clean, the inspectors never would pop the hood or crawl underneath.
And yes, this is very much user error at work here. Owner saw some rust and probably pulled the "I know a guy who can do it cheaper" deal and had someone slag some boogers onto the strut towers to make them whole again. I was told that the car came in for an alignment after, and they slotted the mounting holes to achieve somewhat normal alignment specs after this "repair". If the strut towers were clean, I'd be picking this heap up tonight. But alas....
If it has over 300k, the springs are sagged and it's going to have excessive negative camber, in excess of what you can correct with slotting the strut towers.
I am fairly sure that replacement springs are not available 
To give you an idea of how weird things can be with an R. The headlights are auto-aimed based on rear ride height. This might be mandatory for HIDs in Europe markets so all European cars with HIDs seem to have this feature. The headlight adjustment requirs the height data from the suspension module, an unsealed component made by Motorola and placed in the center of the dash right next to the accelerator pedal. In hot climates the heater core cracks and leaks on to it, in cold climates it gets salt vapors, either way they rust and destroy the circuit board. This happened to me. When this happens, absent rear ride height data the headlights will default to all the way down and you have about 5' of light ahead of you, because unlike the guy in the pickup tailgating you, Volvo wanted to not risk blinding other traffic.
After getting a good used one, I performed a SUM recalibration, or at least tried to. It wouldn't do it because the rear ride height sensors were out of range - the car was sitting too low because of the sagged springs. Then one of the sensors went flaky, so I gave up and just made a grid of resistors to replace the height sensors so there is always 2.5v reported. Now I could perform a SUM calibration and have working headlights again...
Me, I'd rather just take those headlights out and replace them with base headlights. HIDs are horrible headlights if you drive by watching the horizon. But, the wiring is different, as the HIDs have a "high beam" by changing the headlight aim, instead of having a separate bulb with a different aim. The result is low beam that is too bright and lights up the road instead of the things you want to avoid, and a high beam that doesn't throw light very far.
I vastly prefer sealed beams, even the factory originals in my 45 year old Mazda, so take of that what you will.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Wow, that all sounds really, really annoying.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Like C&D's comment about dash cracking in their long term test M3... it's worth it. I haven't kept this car for 163k miles with plans to keep it indefinitely for nothing.
I'd been looking for a V70R and that rust doesn't scare me. My life is changing and I need a four seasons wagon in my life. If I hadn't been out of work for the past six weeks and the car didn't have a check engine light and it was under 10k I'd be figuring out how to get up there to buy it. Clean V70Rs are crazy expensive! For clean V70R prices I'd buy an AWD 2l Ecoboost Escape instead, and not have to worry about door dings.
That's the other thing. P2 Volvos have sheetmetal the opposite of the 240 bricks. It's closer to FD RX-7 and will ding if you so much as look at it too hard. I usually park off in the wilderness when I go anywhere. I'm getting rust on my passenger front door in a weird place that is probably the result of past PDR, fortunately the door is shared with non Rs and I have a common color.
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