First, thanks to everyone here who put up with three months of indecision. If it helps, my car friends got 1,000 times more grief during my Triennial Car Pon Farr.
Second, HUGE thanks to @Benedetto - I had given up on getting a Volvo because the SoCal dealers would NOT deal, and what I wanted was very specific (try finding a 2019 XC60 that was built in Sweden and not China, and of those 5 find the blue one with the black interior). If you are on the fence about hiring a broker: use Edmunds/advice here/the AMAZING calculator to know what kind of deal is possible, and if you canāt make a deal you can live with in that ballpark, hire a broker. I essentially paid 1 lease payment to save over $3,600 in payments on this lease - no brainer. Iām using that savings to take it to my local dealer today for a Polestar tune ā yes it canāt be residualized, we had enough trouble finding this car, Iāll cover Polestar so sheās her happiest for the next 36 months and 36k farts.
Well I guess, but death and taxes and all that. Frankly I wish San Diego would raise our taxes a bit and fix the roads here. I lived in Orange County for a year, where the sidewalks and streets were an A- anywhere else, and they were like āNOPEā and tore them all up and redid them again. Unfortunately itās one of the most boring places I ever lived, except maybe for Disneyland.
We ran into this when looking at Volvos last year. They said newer XC60s would be made in China or the US (I forgot which) but the older ones were in Sweden. How did you verify when looking for yours? I guess yours is pretty specific so itās easier to just ask when inquiring?
I checked the VIN on every one. L VINs are China, YV is Sweden. They do some assembly in Belgium too and US.
Someone correct me if Iām wrong, but from everything I read: Geelyās plan was to build that giant new factory in China, to produce first year in Sweden/Belgium to work out details, and then move Production to China or US depending on model/demand/currency. The 2018 XC60s were mostly built in Sweden, the 2019 production moved to China, and then TRADE WARS happened. Every Volvo dealer I discussed with had a different story (most wrong) about what the deal was.
If you believe what the trades said about XC60 production being moved back to Sweden late spring, then they must have been swimming in Chinese ones still at ports. I was scanning on-ground inventory at US dealers for months. The only other Blue/Black XC60 of any trim I found in June/July with YV VIN was in Northern VA (outside DC). There were a few more with beige interiors that I wasnāt interested in.
If you want a non-Chinese one, the dealers are totally unhelpful. Could not order me a V60 nor XC60 (ordering was closed until it was too late), nor go get me an XC60 with a non L-VIN. Why I was ready to pull the trigger on an Outback.
crap, that means I have to go back and look through all the VINs on my spreadsheet before reaching out.
the columns iām adding to my spreadsheet is growing. there seems to be more things āI must haveā for only $10-15 more a month.
of course itās about perception.
In Japan and Korea, we would pay twice as much for the same electronics because it was made in Japan vs China or SE Asia because they would last longer.
Just a funny side story: my parents lived in China for a while and the Chinese workers would come in at night and build the same electronics with the US company parts and rebrand them.
By my count 98%+ on the ground (July-end) are Chinese. Once you get to the Swedish XC60s, your color and option choices are just a handful, and it will limit the dealers. If you want a hack deal, you prob canāt be choosy on final assembly. This is why I couldnāt residualize Polestar.
