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Chris, good hearing from you again. It's been a while.
Our 1990 740 has 185,000+ on the odometer and never had any significant front end work done other than cone bushings and sway bar bushings. Still the original struts so hitting the pot holes, etc. is starting to get a bit rough. But amazingly the darn thing still drives down the road nice and straight with no shimmy or steering slop or brake pull. Most of the newer stuff we tested with FAR less miles didn't really feel any better when driving. But anyway, the 740 was our only baseline for comparison's sake.
We needed something with some back seat leg room to haul or tall 14 year old son around and looked at several different cars (Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, and so on). We quickly found that the S80 was the only Volvo roomy enough for us. But even it doesn't have the room of the old 740. But having generally received good service from our previous Volvos, we had to give it consideration.
I guess it's due to the gas crunch, but the market is real crazy right now. You can buy a nice 2XX class Mercedes for the same price as a well-equipped Camry with comparable age and mileage because the Toyotas and Hondas just aren't depreciating. I heard some consumer guy saying the other day that if you want a Toyota or Honda, go buy a new one, which goes against the typical preachings of the money minded people.
Anyway (sorry for the long story) we narrowed our search to either the S80 or the Lexus 330. Of course the kids liked the looks of the Lexus better, but it wasn't their money buying the thing. Also, for every one used S80 on the market there are about 50 Lexus's. But it just seemed that most all of the Lexus's were somewhat dinged up or blemished in some way while the S80's all looked to be very well cared for. Plus the three S80's that we tested all seemed to have more of the typical Volvo solid-as-a-rock / built like a tank feel compared to the Lexus. It's like you sit up kind of high compared to the 740 and have plenty of head room - it sort of feels like a good solid 240 more than a 740. And I think the S80 actually had more get-up-and-go than the Lexus, but I can't say for certain.
I talked to a local, well-respected Volvo indy shop and asked them if I were to buy an S80, what should I look for. They said to avoid the anything up to about 2003-2004 as it took Volvo a few years to get the bugs out. They also said to go for the 2.5T 5 cylinder rather than the 2.9 6 cylinder. So I narrowed my Auto Trader searches to those parameters which made the resulting list pretty darn short. I had to search out about 100 miles to get ANY kind of choice and that's in the metro Atlanta area. I figured the people that own these cars are either REALLY happy with them, or they can't afford to replace them. (There seemed to be significantly more S60's out there, but that back seat wouldn't work for us.) Also, I'm wondering if the Lexus people are more "leasors" while the Volvo people are more "buyers"???
All in all, I think it's a pretty nice ride, although we've only had it about a week and a half. So ask me in about 15 years how I'm liking the car. Maybe by then I will have figured out how to control all the bells and whistles.
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