I'm a 28-year-old, southern, white, protestant, conservative husband and father of two. My wife doesn't work and while I do just fine, we still have to keep a tight watch over our pennies. Needless-to-say, cars are a constant source of financial headache...

We only had American cars growing up... mostly Chryslers and Chevys. It's just the way things were. We had (and I still use) a good-old-boy mechanic who drives a 78 Ford pickup and doesn't like to work on anything foreign. My dad and I always handled light repair work in the driveway with junk-yard or Advance Auto parts.

So yeah. I'm a tight-wad and as much a do-it-yourself'er as I can be. I currently drive a '96 Dodge Stratus and my wife drives a '93 Plymouth Grand Voyager. I chose both of these cars mainly, aside from Hondas and Toyotas, you still see a LOT of them on the road (from the mid-90s)... plus they're cheap to fix. But I'm not expecting either of them to break 200K miles and as they both approach it, more and more stupid stuff goes wrong.

So I can't ignore volvos any longer. I mean seriously... I see so many 80's models driving around it's bonkers. And while my cars are clean and fairly well maintained, they still look old... Whereas Volvo's classic styling just works, no matter the year.

So I need to truly understand the long-term costs. If I buy a mid-90s model for $4 or $5k and have to spend ~$1,000/year on maintenance, that's fine with me if the thing's going to last me another 15 years.

Is that an unrealistic expectation? Anyone have suggestions about models? I'm completely new to Volvos so I have no idea what to expect. I really don't need anything fancy though...

 

If you buy a well maintained and well cared for mid 90's Volvo I don't see you spending $1000 a year. On some years you will spend closer to that (timing belt replacment, etc.) but on other years I don't think it will be that much.

If you do decide to go with a Volvo make sure you can get service records, etc. It is not that unusual for a Volvo owner to have them, since most of us are so **** about our Volvo's.