Edmunds.com and kbb.com

Edmunds gives trade-in, private party and dealer retail prices.

"For fun" I tried this for a '93 850GLTS-A with 92k on the clock, and for my zip code I got $4232 trade-in, $5030 private party and $6374 dealer retail.

Note the $2142 gap between trade-in and dealer retail, which will pay for an awful lot of repairs. A Volvo may be costly to maintain (just like almost every nice car), but if you have access to some alternative pathway to get to work like public transit it might still be cheaper to invest in the AAA "Plus" towing which includes 100 miles of flatbedding, and just keep repairing the car until it's "fully depreciated".

We try to keep cars unitl they're "fully depreciated" unless the design is intrinsically flawed like, say, a Daewoo or the Cadillac aluminum V8. Which we wouldn't buy in the first place. I'd expect that the "premium brand" Volvo should cost more to maintain than a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla, but the maintenance cost shouldn't be any worse than an Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz or Saab.

If I seem less negative on Volvo than usual it's because I've witnessed some driving stunts the last couple of days that have convinced me that there are an incredible number of drivers in my state who are entirely clueless as to how to drive, completely insane, or both.

I'd still expect a '93 850 do do better in a wreck than an '04 Corolla or '04 Civic, even after all these years.

Just by Physics 101.

I'd also expect the Volvo would be less likely to put you off the road on your roof like a Lincoln Navigator might.

Physics 102.

Good luck!

-Punxsutawney Phil