I own a 97 Volvo 850. We bought it new in 97 at Byers. We have enjoyed the car a lot and it is still my wife's daily driver. We have 85,000 miles on it presently. I read the reviews about Volvo's lasting for a million miles and that is one of the reasons we bought and the fact that it is designed with safety first in mind.
Overall, we are happy with it but some things are expensive. I usually do all of my maintenance on my vehicles, but for the first 5 years I took the 850 into Byers Volvo. I didnt want to void any warranty, so they did everything from oil changes to the timing belt at 80k. It wasn’t too expensive. The only thing that was expensive and I have not had repaired or fix, is the driver's side heated seat. It just broke this year and I was charged $100 at Byers to tell me that the heating element needs repaired and it will be another $350 to fix. I thought this would be the problem, but I wasn’t expecting $100 to tell me that and another $350 to fix. I was expecting ~$250 for the whole job. I was kinda upset about that, the heating element is a $60 part. I have not torn down a seat before, but am thinking about it, unless someone can do it much cheaper. Another note, that today’s Volvo’s are a product of Ford. I think Ford bought Volvo 98, so we have one of last ‘rest’ Volvos unless you are talking about Volvo trucks. Volvo still owns the truck part. Overall we are happy with the 850.