Wow, these replies almost make me wish I took the V instead of the S!

If I remember right, specs show slightly more headroom for backseat passengers with the V, at least MY2000. Probably no more legroom though, but maybe a big person can sit up straighter. :-)

One small reason I chose the S was the hope of better A/C performance with less cubic feet and less window. The A/C is fantastic, more than needed even in Dallas, so I expect the V to do fine on A/C too.

Volvo has always done well at making the wagon and sedan variants of the same car very close in performance (though that seems to have gone out the window recently now that they are placing the wagon as a slightly larger car) but as the s/v40 are still done the old way chose the one you want, the differences will probably be unoticable unless you are looking for ultimate performance, and even then the differences between two s40's could be as big as between the sedan and the wagon. I'm leaning towards a v40 to replace the 740 in the near future.

I'm probably opening a can of worms here but here's my take: The S40 is probably a tad faster in the quarter mile (less weight), but the V40 has the advantage of 'slightly' better handling due to the better weight distrubution (closer to 50-50 than the S40). At higher speeds, wagons also usually have better drag coeffieients.

I have heard a few complaints from S40 owners as the lack of space. Both the wagon and sedan have minimal leg room for the rear passengers. Load wise, I've been quite happy with the capacity of my V40.

Andrew

2000 Red V40

Austin, Tx