Bought the car about 8 years ago with 59,000 miles on it. Extremely clean and well-maintained with complete service records.(that's why I bought it!)Immediately put IPD sway bars front and rear as well as Bilsteins. Liked the car at first, but my sample 740 must have been built by workers on a Monday after a cold Swedish winter weekend made only marginally tolerable by copious quantities of Akavit. I suspect that the party didn't stop inside the Volvo plant once the weekend was over.

In addition to countless major problems, I have never owned a car whose both rear doors decided not to open necessitating three trips to a body shop to rectify the problem, Replaced pads and rotors more times than I can count including calipers as well (average miles per brake job about 8,000 until I finally switched to aftermarket pads and rotors. I do not "ride the brakes" nor do I live in a hilly area. Head gasket blew at about 130,000 miles necessitating rebuild of entire top end of motor including new head. Multiple electrical problems that defy diagnosis, three water pumps, two fuel pumps, two alternators, cracked door panels due to stupidly fragile design (I finally got tired of replacing those)a faulty relay (a $780.00 dealer repair) sunroof is disabled because it got stuck in "open" position, auto shifter handle has damn near fallen off (very interesting engineering how they designed that assembly) countless oil leaks from motor as well as transmission, brake master cylinder replaced twice, erratic idle and racing motor due to other relay problems, ac unit self-destructed and simply seized up, leaky sunroof (when it worked) two sets of motor mounts, and two heater control valves. Oh, did I mention the umpteen rattles and power window motors that are on the verge of senility? And that's just the SHORT list. Volvos? You can have 'em. I hate 'em! BTW, the car now has about 150,000 miles and has been serviced religiously and NEVER driven abusively. My kid drives it a few miles a day to school and back. Miraculously, the original turbo is still OK. That's the only good news. All work was done by either dealerships or certified independent Volvo mechanics.

Yes, I guess I must have gotten a really bad sample, and yes, life is too short. That's why I bought my BMW 525 Touring and have been smiling ever since.A friend who loves his 240 wagon put it this way: Volvo is a passive-agressive Mercedes when it comes to repair bills. :) I feel better now that I've vented!