Unlike a large number of Brickers, I use a dealer to care for my Volvos.

As four drivers, we have about 600,000 miles on 9 cars - 4 740s, 3 850s, and 2 XC70s - and only have had 3 breakdowns on the road.

Bad alternator brushes, a bad starter, and a stuck caliper - all these were on cars that had over 200,000 miles.

-------- A cell phone and an AAA membership is a great idea. --------

An anecdote - I just purchased a '90 745 with 190,000 miles. The young lady who owned it was given a '05 Toyota. She planned a trip to the west coast (we live in Massachusetts) her uncle who services her cars told her to take the Volvo because it is more dependable.

A great independant mechanic is a good idea, but in my opinion, nothing is a substitute for keeping up on Volvo's maintenance, TIME & MILEAGE performed by techs with access to records, codes, bulletins, and lots of history on various models.

Two years ago, we bought a 2008 XC70 with 78,000 miles. I called the Indie specialist that had stamped the maintenance book, he knew the car and told me that all Volvo maintenance had been done.

At the first service, I had them change the spark plugs and flush the brake fluid. The tech told me that the fluid looked like it was old, and the spark plugs were labeled Ford and were original. They should have been changes at 60,000.

The car now has 93,000, and it would have probably been three more years on the original plugs - possibly having issues before they were changed!