First time owner, 960
 

Helped my son buy his first car a few weeks ago and we landed on a 1995 960. We were fortunate to find a car owned by the same family since new. The car is like a time capsule. 140K miles and in really good shape. Couple weeks later my son was unfortunate enough to hit a racoon on the way home from work and broke off the lower engine shield. I figured given this is a 20 yr old car, the chances of finding another engine shield were nil. But to my surprise Uro Parts makes one. We got the part over the weekend and he's back in business. I've now purchased a couple different parts that were made by Uro and I'm impressed. At first I thought they'd be some cheap knock offs that half fit, similar to other foreign made aftermarket parts but they aren't. Glad to see there's a company out there making parts for older cars that are quality.

Welcome the forum! As a fellow DIY repairs person (I own an S40 and an 850T so it seems I'm always doing something for one of my kids) I thought I'd share some useful links:

New Parts: My top 5 include FCPEURO (lots of Volvo expertise), TASCAPARTS (OEM and online diagrams), EEUROPARTS (great prices on OEM and aftermarket), IPDUSA (mix of performance and aftermarket parts) and AZAutohaus (big site, lots of parts).
Used Parts: Car-parts.com - useful to find a local recycle yard or nation wide. collisionwheel.com - good if you want reconditioned OEM rims or repairs
Research: Volvoforums.com, Swedespeed, Matthews, volvoclub.org. Also search Youtube for DIY vids. Also, volvowiringdiagrams.com & volvotips.com are two other sites I use all the time. You can also search eBAY for a VIDA CD (some with the DICE diagnostic tool - not sure the 95 is OBD1 or OBDII so check).

Good luck!

VIDA and VADIS won't do any useful diagnosis on the 960 but they are good information resources. FCP sells the 'technical publications' dvd which I haven't gotten yet but should fill in the missing info from VIDA and VADIS.

I like the uro parts belly pan and vacuum elbows, but the hoses look a bit cheap and I have heard horror stories about their suspension parts (shock mount broke, sent shock through the hood) I like the little bits that they fill in but as tempting as things like their $30 control arms are I would stay away.

Make sure you change the timing belt, tensioner and waterpump religiously! The biggest problem with the 960 (S90) is that people don't change the belt when they are supposed to and when the belt goes, the motor immediately becomes a boat anchor. As long as people follow the maintenance schedule, these cars are bullet proof.

Yes, you were correct! Uro parts are mostly junk, Asian made, and of cheap quality. May be not all but I definitely would not buy anything critical like hoses, belts, sensors or electronics! Engine splash pan? Sure, why not?