Forgive me, before I start, on what some may call a cynical rant, I must say I love driving my Volvo. My '93 850 looks great and drives like a dream with new bushings and suspension kit, but the reliability has been spotty.
It just seems to me that Volvo lost their touch upon entry to the FWD marketplace. Look at the 240/740/760 owners who can testify 200k+ miles and good reliability. Come 1993 and the 850, great looking car, but a bad record. Move on to the new S60/80 series and just hear the complaints of failures. Surf these forums and read their gripes. I say either give each side fair recognition (tesitfy here if you've experienced good reliability), or rethink a Volvo purchase.
In my eyes it seems Volvo, don't blame Ford, because that's the easy thing to do, has put profits above quality. They seem to build good looking, extremely safe cars, built for rich people who can spend thousands a year on maintenance, that dosen't even prevent all problems. I'm sure some people agree with me and I'm sure there are some that don't, but you can't call the new FWD Volvo's more reliable than their current competitors, like entry level Audis and BMWs or even, gasp.., Japanese luxury brands Lexus and Acura.

When Volvo gives you lemons, make lemonade.

I think the Volvo thing is safety and durability. It's a European car, and the ethos of carmaking across the pond is the hood was installed for a reason, so buy a few tools. (It's the Japanese car where the hood is a purely decorative accessory.) Yet my indy tech services turbo 850's with over 300K miles still running happily on their original turbos....but you have to do the services and put up with certain annoyances.

The RWD's were no picnic. My 1994 945T was bulletproof, and my woefully underpowered 92 940 is pretty reliable, but the 240 was a disaster (steering rack x2, heater fan - as bad as the 850 evaporator - and resistor, fuel pump relays, and the whole litany) and my 745T was not stellar either (turbo x2) and the usual assortment of seals, blower motors every 6 months, heater core and control valves, etc. Both these cars were sold with over 250K miles on them, but still.


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David
98 S70 T5SE // Black, misc mods (mostly lighting), red calipers
92 940GLE // Hella Micro DE foglights

The FWD cars are more advanced than the RWD platforms and unfortunately those advances bring more things to fix when they break. Like it or not, the 850 saved the company. Volvo was losing marketshare with the RWD platforms that had become pretty dated and consumers in the lucrative NE market were demanding something that handled better in the snow. Additionally, Volvo's core value of safety has been copied by every other manufacturer. Volvo is still trying to find a way for it to differentiate itself from the other manufacturers.

My 94 845 t has 123K miles. I have replaced the climate controll computer, but the originol one looked like a soft drink was spilled on it so it had every right to die. No other problems

My 92 740 has 101K miles. Other than normal mntce, nothing to complain about.

My 98 R WITH THE DOOMED AWD, Has 52K miles, nothing wrong yet, and no rattles riding on 17" wheels.

Glad my cars & I don't read the Consumer's Reports.
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Wills 98 R AWD modded wagon 94 854 T some mods 92 740 wagon

It would be great if Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, Saab, Audi could not only design and build great looking cars with excellent engineering but also delivered reliability at par with Honda and Toyota. But I don't think that anyone considering european cars has reliability as number one priority. No one wants a lemon but average reliabilty would do just fine. If reliability is the number one priority then Lexus (terrible name, total lack of imagination), Acura, or Infinity (what moron designs them?) would certainly fit quite nicely. Cars are like women, don't expect the beautiful and hot chicks to cook, take care of the kids, clean the house, be great wives and change your diapers when you get a stroke (if it comes in a single package, so much the better).

That is: "you can't call the new FWD Volvo's more reliable than their current competitors, like entry level Audis and BMWs".

Consumer Reports, which collects HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of questionaires from new owners, doesn't recommend ANY Audi at the moment and only ONE model BMW, the 5-series. Realiability issues. I also don't think they recommend any Mercedes at the moment, also because of reliability.

CR currently recommends both the new S60 and the V70. The reliability prospects at least aren't "dismal".

So this problem isn't JUST Volvo it's most every European car sold.

If you want reliability go for a Japanese nameplate.

-bill d cat

Kinda funny that one of those Japanese nameplates are made in the USA? :-)

i.e. Toyota

And if you really want to know about a particular car, ask the owner who drives one. People love to talk about themselves and their cars.

Including the engines. Honda is, effectively, an American company that's headquartered in Japan. My wife's Odyssey was built in Canada, just like her Mercury Colony Park that it replaced. I think Toyota has 2 engine plants here. The problem isn't that 'mericans aren't good workers and that Japanese are good workers. JAL flies Boeing 747s and 777s, after all.

The problem is that when W. Edwards Deming lectured on statistical quality control, Detroit went out for a 3-martini lunch and the Japanese paid attention and took notes.

GM, for example, has been losing market share in a straight line ever since Deming. Ditto Ford and Chrysler that need to keep assimilating other manufacturers to keep up. (Kinda like The Borg in Star Trek...) Unless something happens EVENTUALLY they'll have a market share of 0%, but that may take 1000 years. Rome wasn't burned in a day.

-bill d cat

I've got a 850 sedan like John, buts its new to me, so I can only attest to the reliability issues I have heard on this forum (tranny, abs modules, evaperators, etc.). I love my car too and hope if possible I can avoid these common problems.
However, it can also be said that consumer reports has the Volvo S80 and the S/V70 AWD cars on their low reliability lists. These Volvo's share spaces on that list with less than stellar American brands like GM's Pontiac cars (almost all of them, lol). As cars get more complex, things break more often so that could be the rise in problems with FWD/AWD Volvos.

That also goes to say that Volvo should make sure these complex parts are reliable. So, I'd have to say I can't really decide whether to agree with you John or not....
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Matt in MA, '93 850 GLT