I have been a S80 and first time Volvo owner for 3 months. So far I have read on several S80 forums with regards to the S80 and Volvos reliablity and cost of maintenance. There are some good comments and alot of negative comments.
I have owned a 2000 s80 now for about six months and so far i'm very happy with it. It's a twin turbo and has loads of power and drives like it's on rails. I did have an issue with the sunroof but was able to fix that myself for five dollars. I just recently replaced the upper motor mount at a cost of sixty dollars. I don't know what the dealer charges for these fixes but being fairly good with a wrench i'll always try to tackle problems myself to avoid the dealer. Neither fix was that big of a problem. The car has 58,000 miles and may have had some items fixed before I bought it. I do understand the frustration with folks that purchased these vehicles new for top dollar and have seen numerous trips to the dealer. Volvo should stand behind their product a little better in my opinion with some of the well known problems that exist. I did buy an extended warranty so if anything major comes up i'll be covered. All and all i'm happy with the vehicle and plan on driving it till the wheels fall off. I hope that never really happens. Then I will have a beef with Volvo.
I have a 99 S-80 that I originally bought in 2002. Here is a list of the problems I have had with it. Although everything in the first 100,000 miles was covered under my extended warranty, I still find it hard to believe that my current problems don't date back to well before my warranty expired: