I'm on the look out for a V70, seeing a couple this week, and would prefer an auto but manual is also fine. in fact, most of the cars that I'm seeing are manual and wonder if the reason I'm about to type my question is the reason... So, within this very section of the forum there's a thread that mentions by several, that the manual gearbox is unreliable and v expensive to repair...how true is this from a wider audience perspective? I ask as the cars I'm looking at this week are both manual! Should I stick to auto boxes? BTW, both cars are 55 plate, done around 85k and with the 185bhp engine if that helps. Thanks in advance

The manual boxes are extremely reliable if you could see inside you would realise why ... they are built to cater for the big power from the T5 engines and unlike Fords , parts are not slimmed down for the less powerful engines ...

Me neither since it came out with the 850 , no bearing problems , no syncromesh problems no gear change problems , no final drive problems and thats with no oil changes too as it's filled with top quality synthetic oil from the factory....it just works ...

Thanks everyone, that puts my mind at rest. Here's a link to the thread where manual gearboxes are questioned..

Only problem I have seen for the manual gearbox is . Namely the difficulty selecting a gear first thing in the morning but I think that only affected a handful of cars.

thats not a gearbox fault though it's a clutch fault ...

Lets call it a fault which does not affect cars with automatic gearboxes :)