Yesterday afternoon my trans decided to fail. For a few thousand miles, the car had troubles upshifting and down shifting. Currently, it is stuck in gear. Our local Volvo Specialist said he could rebuild the trans for $3,800-$4,000 (I do not remember the exact price). I believe a new one is $7k or $8k.

We bought the car from Volvo a couple years ago (Certified Pre-Owned model with 105k at the time) and still love it! My son and I did extensive research on it and found that it was a really good car. In fact, we used Carcomplaints in our research. While reading reviews, we found that 2001-2003 has quite a few problems with the transmission (valve body to be exact). It was quite a surprise to see that our 2004 is doing the same thing as a 2003. Volvo fixed the problem with the valve body in 2004 models, just make sure the car was built in 2004. Our XC70 is a 2004 model but built in mid 2003, so I am assuming it has the old transmission in it.

I just wanted to make mention of that for future purchasers. The XC70 is a great car. We have not had any problems with it apart from the transmission and the eleven year old, original Volvo battery dying in August 2014, but the battery isn't really an issue. The Carfax showed that is has had all of its services done on time, and only a couple of things had been fixed from the purchase date to the sale date to us. In short, if you are thinking about buying a 2004 XC70, just make sure it was built in 2004 to pass up the transmission issue. They are reliable, comfortable, spacious, and extremely solid.