Thanks to everyone for putting in their 2 cents. The V70 sounds like a bit of a challenge if one doesn't do their own maintenance, which he wouldn't be. They thought about an Odyssey but it is out of the price range while he is still in graduate school. He may try to stick with the 240 a little longer, which I must say has been a very high $$$ maintenance vehicle. It is a '93 model w/171K miles. They just dropped over $1,500 to replace the steering box and full set of brakes/rotors. It is expensive when you have to get someone else to perform the maintenance. I put over $7K in it when I had it for a year or so. Getting time to cut our losses. Too bad, it is a beautiful car, white/black cloth.

I saw a nice looking 98 V70 non-turbo on eBay with 63K miles and sent them a note inquiring why the CarFax report showed so many visits to the 'service facility'. The response from the listing dealer was: "Hi...you do realize that the service trips are a good thing??...they are for maintanence reasons...'.

Yeah, right...good for who....a jobs program for his mechanic? This car was in the shop every several thousand miles according to CarFax. No thanks on that program.

If we go the used Volvo wagon route, it may be back to looking at 740/940. We missed a '92 740 non-turbo wagon with 24K miles a few weeks back. A bit on the high $$ side, but a one owner car with all records. I gave my '94 940 to our younger son a few years ago...probably the best car we ever owned.

Thanks again to everyone for their input...I think the V70 may not be quite the fit that we hoped it would be.

John