LOTS that's electrical. 95+ take FWD offset wheels.
Dated luxury car. Don't buy a beat to hell one, "no car more expensive than a cheap Mercedes" applies, though a fair bit from any 7/9 car interchanges to keep things fairly painless when sourcing used parts.
ZERO resale value for 92-94 ones generally speaking, no one wants those cars, even if they are fairly pleasant to drive. I don't mind the '94 with a later timing belt in a white wagon...early cams, early body (just get some e-codes and egg crate grill to make it look OK if you care), solid axle in wagons, no peely door panels, early door panels (dated looking, but better grab handles and easier to cherry pick generic 7/9 parts for that inevitably wear out).
They are popping up in the JYs now.
The peely panels is a 95+ thing. By 98 they fixed it, but a little rare to find one of those for parts.
Front end bushings are terrible. There is a "heavy duty" version of it that doesn't suck as much, but most are wasted in the front control arms and cause the toe angle to change like 15? on braking or something silly.
Usual whiteblock stuff:
Crankcase vent
Headgaskets
Hit and miss pourous blocks
Most have worn thrust bearings, but still run a long time like that, not sure why.
Burned valves once in a while.
Oil pump and pickup o-ring.
Waterpump/tbelt and nose seals you do all at once strictly on time.
Cooked trans in some, especially early ones.
Usual other random stuff for those cars/engines/drivetrain.
Swap seat parts onto manual seat frames IMO, but I hate power seats.
They are interesting, some rack up a bunch of miles and are cared for on time and don't burn a valve (good oil helps a lot no doubt), or have the block problem or a beat up interior and are pretty pleasant to drive and aren't bad cars over all really.
If the price is right and you don't get a beat up one, maybe I guess.
I prefer basic 240s for just a workhorse with more years parts interchange and less electrical.
We have W124 benz in our JYs, and the 94/95 420E is a MUCH nicer car to drive all around, of dated, kind of pointless luxury cars. No wagon on that one though. Similar amounts of electrical, but the interior doesn't go to crap and the motor actually has some power, and it has a little bit of resale if a clean example and just needs a waterpump or something easy. Fuel economy highway ok on either, worse on the 960 if it has to climb hills and you beat on it.
But it's a luxury car, so some repairs will really reflect the original purchase price and some parts won't interchange with random volvos in the JY FWD or RWD. If you know what to pick off of dead FWD/RWD volvos to fix one, you can save a lot of money, but maybe not time.
If you get a real clean one where someone rained money at it (but it isn't a lemon one...of which there are) for stupid dirt cheap and have a stockpile of used parts on hand that fit it, sure I guess. *shrug*. Probably has to be a face-lift one if you ever want to sell it when you are done with it, even though a good early one, mechanically speaking, with the later t-belt stuff on it, is fine as long as it isn't a lemon one motor-wise.
I believe the date cutoff is pre-95? I'm sure someone on here will comment with more accuracy. By now, though, most of those blocks have been replaced/scrapped.
