Volvo vs BMW 325 repair costs.

my bmw was more $ to run and maintain than my volvos...

Both suck. I have had them both and paid $1000s for what should have been simple work.

This kind of cost is strictly a Dealer issue. Since the manufacturer is unable to effectively control what the Dealer charges, anything goes!

My friendly Volvo Dealer is also BMW and Porsche. The hourly rate for service work is the same for all three marques. Before deciding to stay with Volvo, I looked long and hard at the 330xi, being taken with such goodies as the computer sampling oil condition and telling you when to change it. Neat.

In any event, most BMW stand alone stores see Volvo as a competitor and vice versa. Magically, parts prices to the consumer tend to be level - in our Reno market, anyway.

bob noble Reno, NV, USA

hummmm...we have had a few bmw's "in the family"...they are nice cars...esp the brakes (imho)...but...the extra $$ did not seem justified, once i started checking out the volvos and driving/owning...volvo seemed to me, to be more car for the $$...i have never owned a benz...i hear great things about them...i guess they are like a lot of cars...if you take care of them...they will take care of you...in a bit more confort...some of the new lease rates look good for the small 4 door benz sedans...

Well BMW just never fit with us very well. They were smaller then Volvo's of similar money (still are) and we needed something to tow with... The 5 series wagons would do the trick now, but back 10 years ago you just couldn't get one here (maybe they had them in Europe??? I don't know). The Benz wagon would have been nice, but it was too rare of a car in North America, my dad knew this... and the price difference wasn't enough, especially when we saw how much luxury the 960 included.