I'm partial to the 960. We've had ours for only 140K Kms, but still... 11
year old car. Nothing major other then a steering rack, and that might have
been caused by my mothers desire to turn the steering wheel when the car
isn't rolling.
My father claims to everyone that it is the best Volvo ever made until the
modern V70's came out... Yah the 940's are probably a little more "user
serviceable" but honestly my dad and I don't like working on cars unless
it's for stuff like changing the spark plugs, or doing the belt (not
timing)... The hardest job we did was a valve cover gasket on our old Golf
. The 960 has a straight six, so you know it'll last, I mean it's
perfectly balanced, so no inherent vibration to shake the engine and such...
It has the latest and greatest electronic management from 1993 (or 1995 if
you get the updated engine) and is better on gas on the highways then the
740 was (at least the NA, and 16 Valve DOHC models we had). You also get an
A/C system that works properly, ours has lasted 11 years with only one
checkup to top off and leak seal the system, and the ECC makes temperature
selection something you don't need to adjust while driving (I don't know
about you but can never get the right temperature with cold-to-hot
knobs/sliders).
Brake pads on our car lasted over 100K Kms, other then those, timing belts,
and stuff like that nothing really big... Exaust system was done after 8
years (we don't drive the car enough to get a huge life out of it... got a
stainless exaust from what looks like an 850 by the tip on the end). Oh and
one caliper started leaking at 130K kms, not bad, but it had to be replaced
of course.
