I have recently bought an '89 240 GL that was meticulously maintained at the local Volvo dealership by the previous owner.

I plan on doing a lot of the future mechanical work needed myself, rather than taking it to the dealership as often as the previous owner did.

There are things I might want to buy for it, or questions I might need to ask which can only be done at the dealership so I guess my question is:

What stuff does a dealership typically carry for the 240 and how 'daily driver-friendly' are most Volvo dealerships/mechanics?

Any thoughts or experiences would be helpfull. My other car is a Minivan and I can tell you that most of the dealer items for it are overpriced, and the mechanics are professional, but won't go out of their way to just give you advice or talk to you about your vehicle. Seems like with them everything is just "bring it in and we'll see" or "well, we'll just replace it with..."

My Dad say's that most mechanics today are really just over-rated parts changers and I am starting to agree. We have all this nifty computer equiptment now to diagnose problems with the vehicles, but the answer always seems to be "just REPLACE (fill in your part description here)...." My guess is how else will they pay for all the nifty computer equiptment?