I recently bought a V70 and would like to buy Volvo Service manuals for attempting my own repairs on my 2002. I had no trouble getting such manuals from Volvo for my 240's ignition system (with fault tracing), fuel system (with fault tracing and computer codes), charging system, brakes, etc. Yesterday i looked at the volvo website and was only able to order a wiring diagram book. The other books may have been incorporated into an expensive (more than $1000) tome. Are there places to buy the smaller specific books such as for the emission system? Thanks for the comments.

My car is a 1999. Since most parts of the 1999 are the same as the 1998, I bought the hard copy manuals for the 1998 for brakes, suspension, A/C and wiring. I also have a VADIS disk and a subscription to http://www.alldatadiy.com.
I find the VADIS disk hard to navigate and sketchy. The alldata site is OK. Most of what is on it straight out of the Volvo manual, so the alldata site is never going to be any better than the factory manual.

I have several cars on my alldata subscription ($first one is $25 / year, and each one after that is $15. Renewal is $15, but you have to renew BEFORE it expires. I went to renew on the expiration date, and found that it is considered expired the minute the day begins, so I had to pay $25.) The value of the info is only as good as the value of the info in the factory manuals, but I heartily endorse the alldata solution.

Thanks for the info, Peter. But i don't see a description on the Volvo website as to what exactly is on the VADIS (soon to be VIDA?) disk. Is the disk a CD compilation of many volvo service manuals? Is the detail on the disk similar to one of Volvo's older printed manuals? Volvocars.com doesn't seem to give a sample of what lurks on the disk. Buying the 1998 hard copy manuals sounds like a good start in dealing with my 2002 V70. I've also been reading some other comments on BrickBoard (wonderful place) about reading the car's error codes by buying readers from PEP boys, etc.

VADIS is actually a DVD disc that you have to insall from on your computer...actually takes about an hour and takes up tons of room, but it has just about every volvo made on it. It is hard to navigate and isn't very user friendly but it does have tons of information on it as well as all the part diagrams and numbers.
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1998 S70 T5 Emarald Green Metallic, 2004 V70 2.5T Ruby Red, Previous Owner of Black '94 850 Turbo Wagon. My cars have been running so well lately they've got me worried.

About the only place I know is alldata.com or a VADIS disc off of ebay. Nothing in print that I know of...Thanks Volvo!
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1998 S70 T5 Emarald Green Metallic, 2004 V70 2.5T Ruby Red, Previous Owner of Black '94 850 Turbo Wagon. My cars have been running so well lately they've got me worried.

I don't know about other people's experience with Alldata, but here is mine:

I bought a DIY manual on CD from them for my 850 (1995) for $40 or so. The information contained in it is VERY sketchy and mostly generic. The few illustrations are drawings which come up as *.GIF files which print with very poor resolution. They are just line drawings, not even in greyscale. I bought this a few years ago and the PC I was using then ran Windows 98. The manual is now completely useless as it will not load or execute under Windows XP (though that is presumably fixed in new releases).

A pro mechanic friend recently downloaded some sheets from the Alldata pro subscription site and printed them for me. They are just as bad.

In fairness to Alldata, the current online subscription demo for owners looks more comprehensive than what I've seen before.

I'd be interested to hear your opinions.

thanks to all...