Personally, I would think any car that someone has to maintain through a dealer or independant mechanic is quite expensive.

I do all the work on our 940s - and with that preface, 940s are very reasonable to maintain. Every year or so I'll have to fork out a bit of money for a somewhat expensive part, but 90% of the time, in my experience, the 940s are trouble free.

Folks I've known with 10 year old BMWs/Mercedes do pay big $$ to have them worked on and maintained (as none of them work on the cars themselves). My family members with 940s/740s who don't work on their own cars generally have little to no trouble with their volvos - nor do I ever hear of any horror stories about expensive labor/maintainence charges.

Just my .02.