There are several threads on this subject, but I thought I would summarize my last month of diagnosis in one place. (By the way, I am _not_ a mechanic; oil changes are about the limit of my experience, but you folks have educated me quite a bit):

Symptom - after 5 years of fine starting, car begins to take 2-8 seconds to start instead of the near instant response I'm used to. When the engine does begin to turn over, it is 'weak' at first (not all 5 cyl firing?), but quickly gets to a nice idle. (For the record, the car is pampered and has 71K miles.)

My conclusion - bad check valve on fuel pump. Start time depends on how much fuel pressure has been lost since it was turned off. I assume the fuel basically drains back into the fuel tank, and has to make its way all the way back up to the injectors each time I start it. I verified this theory with a fuel pressure gauge. I attached it to the shraeder valve on the right of the fuel rail under the plastic shrowd. It takes varying amounts of time, but after running the engine (with the gauge connected) you can see the pressure go down from about 40lbs to 0.

Other things I tried during the diagnois:
- replace spark plugs
- switch to Mobil1 synth oil (several web sites suggest that 'stuck' tappets can have a similar effect, but due to lack of compression -not fuel- when the engine is started)
- fuel injector additive - just seemed like something easy to try
- get the engine up above 3000 rpm (something I don't usually do) to 'blow out' deposits. This seemed like a goofy idea, but my mechanic suggested it...
- new battery. (The old one died, but I don't think it was related to the starting problem.)

I did _not_ go to the nearest dealer (Annapolis Volvo)
- because the car is out of warranty and I don't think they're worth the $
- after 6 trips to the dealer, they never did get my winshield washers to work
- you have to schedule appt too far in advance

I'm not going to fix the fuel pump, because my mechanic thinks it's not worth the $. However, it does bug me. I hope to have this car for more than 200K miles, but I won't buy another Volvo.