I still think that YOUR negative opinion of people at THIS board is based on the fact that some here tend to give YOU a hard time when you mention the fact that you sell new Volvos. THAT makes you "the man" to those who have a "beef" with their newer Volvo as for those who've had headaches, they want to be able to bitch to someone on a personal level about what they see as being a POS car or "lemon" even though I'll admit that I too often think that there's more to some of these stories that meet the eye. We don't hear the other side of the story and there IS often another side to many of these stories too.
The other site you've mentioned pretty much states at the top that they don't want to hear complaints like that and is more technical in nature. I've seen that site too but rarely post there so far.

As for the AWD components that fail on '98, '99 XCs, (like the bevel gear that costs about $2,400) those parts are really unchanged with THAT AWD system and IF "Mr XC owner" has a blowout, uses the spacesaver spare longer or at faster speed than what the owners manual states OR fails to replace ALL tires even if one blows, the same damage can still occur. Sure, if one knows all that and doesn't have a problem with that, then the current XC AWD system should last BUT you'ld be surprized just how many people don't obide by those rules and have someone install mismatched tires.

The new system on the AWD S60, XC 90 and hopefully '03 XC (???, havent read yet) will not have the same tire related issues and should be a far better system.