I have heard two schools of thought on struts, from Volvo mechanics who no longer work for a dealership.

The first person, my indy when I don't do it myself, says he has almost never pulled a bad strut out of an 850. The other person says by 150000 miles you should need them.

Personally, I listened to my indy and common sense. My car performs very well when I do hit a bump (in my life I have always driven very defensively when it comes to potholes, bumps, debris, etc), there is no bouncing or other anomaly. So I went with "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I am confident that my car will die with the struts that are in it.

Your mileage may vary. Good luck! By the way, I concur with the other fellow who suggested not going through and just replacing everything. You'll be spending enough $ on the car already. Think ABS unit, axles, A/C, brakes, spring seats, etc etc etc

Don '95 855T 184,000 mi

Just did spring seats and anti-swaybar linkrods on my 2000 S70 AWD. Relatively easy job even with the usual snags and learning curve of doing it for myself the first time....

Lots of clunking from both sides of the front end over smallish bumps at low speeds gave away the need for the seats, and went ahead and replaced the linkrods since they are easy and cheap and I already had the wheel off to remove the struts for the seat replacement.

At 120k, my struts still seem good, however. I think the best advice I've seen or can give on strut or shock condition is to bounce each corner of the car repeatedly by putting both hands on a good strong part of the fender and using your body weight in a sort of stacatto manner to quickly and sharply attempt to get the corner oscillating up and down rapidly then release your inputs abruptly. If while you are bouncing, the car feels "springy" (I.E. the springs are bouncing with little or no damping felt) or if the car continues bouncing for more than one or two oscillations after you let go, you probably need new shocks or struts, respectively. My 1990 740 bounced like a superball in the back when I tried this, giving away the need for new rear shocks.

As far as suppliers, I bought my endlinks and seats for the S70 from a local independant Volvo shop for about $160. Best prices I've seen on shocks and struts are from ajusa.com, followed by fcpgroton.com and eeuroparts.com (the latter two also carry the seats, links, and stut mounts/bearings, if you need them).
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I luv me bricks!

Personally, I would have a good alignment shop look at everything and replace only on a case-by-case basis, unless you have a really generous budget. The extent of wear and chance of failure depend on the usage (especially as the other poster noted, during city driving). A bad ball joint or tie rod end can be a very serious safety issue.

When the ride quality gets bad enough to justify struts, you will feel it unmistakeably, in my opinion.

Trust me, you need them. Mine were gone (in bumpy Chicago) by 65K. You know cuz every bump is a CRASH!. Your strut mounts and sway bar links are probably toast also.

IPD is a good place for parts, many folks replace the OEM with the softer BILSTEINs, which are excellent.

Good luck.