Bret,

My friends 850 was never serviced at the dealer but he was more anal than me when it comes to service. His belt broke right before hitting the 70,000 mark and his indy mechanic was just down the street from the Volvo dealership. As I was told, he towed the car to his indy mechanic and they couldn't find any reason, other than belt defect, that it should have failed. They called the dealership and faxed an estimate on the cost. Volvo paid the bill directly to the indy mechanics, the work was completed and everyone was happy, except Volvo - I'm sure. FYI...these indy mechanics used to work at that dealership before going on their own.

You HAVE to make Volvo eat this repair! If they didn't have faith in their belts, then they shouldn't keep increasing the maximum mileage for belt replacement. Frankly, I think that a replacement at 70,000 is too often, but hopefully the technologies are getting better. Frank said that the newer cars will have a 150,000k interval before replacement. I applaud this. I wouldn't feel worried about going this long before replacement, as long as Volvo said it's okay.

If your car has had regular maintenance and doesn't appear to have been abused, I don't think Volvo should give you any hassle. If the service manager doesn't sign off on the repair, you make sure that you get the Regional-Volvo-repair-district-manager on the phone post-haste. If they want a fight, give it to them and/or threaten to call 20/20 or 60 Minutes! This should get them moving real fast.

Let us know what happens.

dp