Hello, I'm considering buying a used Volvo. I've got a few dozen vehicles I've been browsing. At the prices I can afford, most of these vehicles are already at 140K miles or above. I've heard these can be nice and dependable cars, and I've heard from some vociferous and curmudgeonly techs that they are nothing but money traps. Well I want some data.

How much, on average, do you spend in maintenance (including oil changes and scheduled maintenance) per year, once your car is past 150K miles?

If you choose to include year and model of car, and a description of repairs, that would be great, too.

 

The name of the game is to fix it yourself. For instance, my brother was a lazy *** and got his fuel pump replaced by a shop. They charged him 300+. The are uber easy to do and cost 70$ at advanceautoparts. new fuel pressure regulators are 250$. One at the junkyard costs 15$ Injectors cost 120 each for new(similar to any car actually) rebuilt ones off of ebay or sending your old ones out to be flushed and rebuilt cost 16 each. etc etc

 

I had a '87 740 GLE, it had over 400,000 on it before I gave it away. I was spending less than 25 per month on the car. DIY and you can drive them forever. Take it to the stealer and you will want to bail. My 740 hardly needed any repairs. The tires, Michelens would last 90k, clean the flame trap every 5k, oil every 5k, brake pads (never rotors), and air filter.