Rich, We have owned my wife's 2003 XC for 7 years. It only has 86K miles on it.
She will not depart from the Volvo line (owned 7, starting with a 1981 240 wagon. I drive a 2004 V70 (136K miles), and the XC is at it's best when the going "gets tough." The XC has been mostly maintained by me with the help of this site.
The only major repairs I can recall are: I had to replace the alarm module (2hrs, $180 for part). Also, last Fall the right rear parking brake sheared from it's mounting plate and tore up the internals in that area. I had both rear braking assemblies renewed (new disc's, parking pads, brake pads, bearing and shaft on damaged side,etc). It cost about $1100......... I was not
happy with the failure, but the problem may have been precipated by a bad batch of bonded parking pads dating back to factory assembly per repair shop seeing several of these faliures in 2003's.
I would definitely recommend checking/replacing the parking brake pads the next time rear disc pads are replaced.
Art