97 850 common things to look out for

I'm looking to purchase a 97 850 and was wondering what to look out
for, when checking it out.

 

The late 850s/early S70s have problems with electrical gremlins,
especially in the lights and flasher, and noisy brakes that wear out
rather quickly. FWIW, I know a woman who bought a '96 GLT a few years
back because of Volvo's reputation, and she now regrets it even though
there have been no major failures. If you want a 'driver's car' and
don't mind higher upkeep, a nice 850/S70 can be fun. If you want true
reliability and excellent gas mileage, consider a Camry or Accord. Come
to think of it, I'm not sure exactly what advantage an 850 has over an
Accord EX, unless it has a high-pressure turbo...

 

: jacktheboy wrote:
:> I'm looking to purchase a 97 850 and was wondering what to look out
:> for, when checking it out.
:>

: The late 850s/early S70s have problems with electrical gremlins,
: especially in the lights and flasher, and noisy brakes that wear out
: rather quickly. FWIW, I know a woman who bought a '96 GLT a few years
: back because of Volvo's reputation, and she now regrets it even though
: there have been no major failures. If you want a 'driver's car' and
: don't mind higher upkeep, a nice 850/S70 can be fun. If you want true
: reliability and excellent gas mileage, consider a Camry or Accord. Come
: to think of it, I'm not sure exactly what advantage an 850 has over an
: Accord EX, unless it has a high-pressure turbo...

a/c evaporator, expensive/hard to replace.

 

A 1997 car will likely have somewhere around 150,000 to 200,000 miles
so my first concern would be that the previous owner had kept the
routine maintenance up for the past decade. There should be evidence
of regular changes of all fluids - oil, coolant, power steering fluid,
brakes.

Make sure all controls and components work - try everything. How
does the car shift under a variety of conditions. To be honest there
is a long list of things to be looked at. I would recommend having
an experienced Volvo mechanics give the car a prepurchase inspection.
The eyes and ears of someone who has seen hundreds of cars in for
repair is invaluable.

 

VOLVO 850 '95 - '97 are 3 of Volvo's best years. Good luck.

Make sure you get a service history and check to see if the timing belt
service is current. If you need to know recommended service check the
books at:

<http://www.volvocars.us/tools/OwnersInfo/>

Owners Manual:
<http://new.volvocars.com/ownersdocs/1995/1995_850/95850_1.html>

Maintenance Chart:
<http://new.volvocars.com/ownersdocs/1995/1995_maintenance/1995_800_maint
enance.html>

 

What do you mean by 'regular' changes? In the case of power steering and
brakes at least there is no schedule and I would be very leery of
dicking around with closed systems 'regularly'.

cheers,

Henry

 

Power steering fluid should be replaced at the ten year mark or so,
if not sooner. It's true there isn't a schedule for it, at least with
Volvo; I *tried* to get a dealer to change the P/S fluid in our 240, and
they refused. Two years later, the steering rack failed. The Toyota
dealer actually suggested it for our Camry, though, and it's a good
idea. As for brakes, if the front ones haven't been changed in the last
50k miles, and/or the rear brakes in 75k miles, you can expect to
replace them.

 

Somebody is misunderstanding here, whether you or I. I read 'Roadie' as
saying that all fluids -- including brake fluid -- should be changed
regularly. That's obviously not the same as replacing the brakes (i.e.,
pads, calipers, rotors, etc).

cheers,

Henry

 

Brake fluid should be replaced regularly - it's even in the owner's
manual.
My '98 says:
Replace: Every second year or 30,000 miles (48,000 km). The fluid
should be replaced once a year or every 15,000 miles (24,000 km) when
driving under extremely hard conditions (mountain driving , etc.)

--
Mike F.
Thornhill (near Toronto), Ont.

Replace tt with t (twice!) and remove parentheses to email me directly.
(But I check the newsgroup more often than this email address.)

 

OK, I stand (erm ... sit) corrected.

cheers,

Henry

 

Well Henry, most Volvo owners who want their transmissions, brakes,
cooling systems and power steering units to last do flush them
periodically. There is a schedule for brakes - check your owners
manual. I think it is clear that brake fluid, coolant and oil would
not be changed at the same time but it should be changed on a regular
basis. If the owner had never flushed the transmission, power
steering or brake system on a car with 150k miles I would walk - no
run away.

 

Failed or failing A/C evaporator which is very expensive to replace.
Can be hidden by recharging the system if the leak is slow.

Failed ABS controller, very common.

Failed HVAC recirculate arm.

Failed hose at the top of the fuel tank causing evap. check engine
light. Might be masked by resetting the light.

Overage water pump and/or poorly maintained cooling system. If the
water pump siezes it breaks the timing belt which in turn can grenade
the valves.

Leaking heater cores are common, but not too hard to replace.

Oddball electrical malfunctions can be caused by a failing ignition switch.

Automatic transmissions sometimes have issues. Regular fluid changes
WITH CORRECT FLUIDS are very important.

Those are just the problems I can recall off the top of my head .

 

I'm not sure exactly what advantage an 850 has over an

Hmmm, I replaced my '96 850 with an '03 Accord EX V6 w/Navigation. The
replacement Accord cost me less than my base model 850 had in '96.
Today's S60 is even less competitive because of the midget sized rear
seating.

John

 

I believe Volvo specifies a once per two years change interval on brake
fluid. They don't spec any change on steering or transmission fluids,
but doing so once every 5 years or so can add life to those parts.

John

 

You are correct. What Volvo recommends is:

BRAKE FLUID: REPLACE - at interval or every two years-

OIL FILTER & ENGINE OIL: REPLACE - every 10,000 miles or 6 months
Turbo Models: Replace oil and filter every 5,000 miles.

AIR FILTER CARTRIDGE: REPLACE- every 30,000 miles

SPARK PLUGS: REPLACE - every 30,000 miles

DRIVE BELT: REPLACE - every 60,000 miles

PCV - REPLACE FLAME GUARD: CLEAN NIPPLE AND HOSES - at 60,000 mile and
also at 100,000 miles

TIMING BELT: REPLACE - every 70,000 miles

I never change coolant, transmission or steering fluid and never have
any problems in 180,000 miles. I follow Volvos recommended service and
have no problems.

It is cheap to replace if it makes you feel better.

This is from
<http://new.volvocars.com/ownersdocs/1997/1997_maintenance/1997_800_maint
enance.html>

 

Stephen Henning wrote:

(...)

Two caveats: just because you haven't had a transmission or steering
failure doesn't mean that not changing the fluids doesn't increase the
risk of the failures occurring, and I hope that you don't want the car
to go past 200k miles, because you'll probably need a transmission and
brakes by then. Probably a radiator as well.

Part of the reason the early ('93 and '94) 850 had a high failure
rate in the automatic transmissions was that Volvo decided the
transmission didn't need to be serviced before 100k miles.



(...)

 

That is good advice that applies to all cars, not just Volvo's. I
have always taken the recommended servvice intervals to be the
absolute minimum needed to get 200,000 miles from a car. My goal is
to have cars run for at least 300,000 miles, so I shorten maintenance
intervals and take those extra steps. It works.

 

have any data??? These problems don't show up in surveys of owners.
In fact the '95 - '97 850 are among the most reliable cars ever made.
My '95 is still going strong with just dealer service at recommended
intervals.

They why did they fail before 100k miles. It had a couple weak internal
parts and didn't fail with the same service interval after they fixed
the design of these parts. When my '93 AT failed, the fluid was still
in excellent condition. They didn't wear out, they broke.

 

So does using dealer service at recommended intervals. I have never
seen any data to show otherwise.

On my garden equipment engines, the one thing that really helps keep the
insides of the engine clean is when changing the oil, to flush the
crankcase. I do this with kerosene followed by motor oil. You wouldn't
believe all the crap that this removes. My garden tractor which mows 2
acres in the summer and plows snow in the winter is over 30 years old
and runs like new. That is about 70 hours per year or 2,000 hours, the
equivalent of 120,000 miles in a car. I also use air-cooled motorcycle
oil. It maintains its viscosity. Standard motor oil gets like molasses.

 

Cars that fail at 200k miles can still be rated "very reliable." And
there aren't enough people keeping the cars that long for there to be
strong survey data. But hey, feel free to disbelieve me, and to think
that those fluids are Immortal. ;-)

They apparently did both. The transmissions that weren't defective
tended to fail at or above 100k miles because they were still running
the original fluid. IIRC, Volvo didn't even have a usable filler hole
for it on the early ones...