I'm 18 years old and my 240 was rear ended again. While my car is in the shop, the family wagon is starting to give out, thus encouraging my parents to go ahead and get another car for me and they would take my 240 to replace the failing wagon. Today, they came across a 1994 960, with 160k, at our mechanic's shop. It has some body work left to be done, but it is going to be up for sell as soon as the work is finished. My parents are highly considering this car for me, since we know the repair history of it. I was wondering if there are any major problems with the 960's in general. Any comments and/or advice is greatly appreciated.

Josh, I like the way your parents think. Any chance they'd adopt a 51-year old aerospace engineer?

The 960 is the pinnacle of RWD Volvo-dom. From a reliability standpoint is is light years away from the very simple 122's in the sense that there are so many electronic amenities which can go poof!, but... that is one of the sweetest six-cylinders out there. One drawback is that the older 960's required a timing belt change about every 24,000 miles. I just read something here in the BB recently which explained why such frequent changes were necessary, and there may have been a suggestion as to a retrofit. You'll have to do some research to find it. Take a couple of hours and comb thru the BB archives to get a sense of what else may be fragile on that car, but I think it's a real short list. If the price is right, I would go for it.

Go to top of page under RWD (THats where you were before you posted this)

click on 700-900 Frenquently asked Q's Clk on buying a 900.