84 760 Turbo DIESEL purchase?

Those engines are very expensive to fix, and it's fairly hard to find someone who really knows what they're doing to work on them. They are less tolerant of poor maintenance that the 4 cylinder as well. I would recommend against it.

The VW/Audi six was in use by Volvo in the 200, 700 and 900 series cars until

1998 so was in production for a very long time. Volkswagen themselves tweaked it up as an experiment and got 225 bhp from it. They had to change the camshaft to achieve this, but reached 200 bhp before the camshaft change. The four variants were straight diesel 85 bhp, turbodiesel 109 bhp, intercooled turbo diesel 122 bhp and a variant for the Italian market 780 127 bhp. My own (with hydraulic tappets and cambelt tensioner other than the waterpump!!) is producing 145 bhp with some mild tuning of the fuel pump by an expert.

Cheers, Peter.

: > But the diesel motor is mechanically sound, supposedly. : >

: > Although I was looking for a gas turbo model, (another 84 760T would : > be SWEEEEET), I was just wondering what the consensus was on the older : > turbo DIESELS by Volvo. : >

: > This one has somewhere between 100 and 120,000 miles on it (with a : > broken odometer, of course) so it may have some serious miles, but : > only smokes a puff or two on acceleration, which may be normal for a : > diesel, I don't know. : >

: >

: > What do you long- timers think of the diesel models, aside from the : > obvious smell, and lack of quickness of course? : >

: >

: > Thanks : >

: :

Thanks all for the opinions, given that this car (Which I have not seen, but the dealer selling it says it's a "little beat up but runs good") sounds like it may too much of a handfull.

If the motor turns out to be a dud, I'm not prepared to swap the engine out. That's beyond my realm of capabilities for a 20 yr old auto.

And diesels still scare me.

If you liked your 760 Turbo, avoid the diesel like the plague, you'll be dissapointed. The older Diesel Volvos were slugs, the Volkswagon manufactured engine is notorious for being noisy, slow, and smoking heavily. From the description containing ratty interior, crinkles in the body, and worst of all, rust, it sounds to me like this particular car is scrap, and that's coming from someone who loves Volvos and hates to see a repairable one parted out.

Diesels are great, the particular Diesel that Volvo used in these cars though is a much less than stellar example of the technology.

I agree James, plus the fact that it was a dealer who was selling it, so I just figured it has too many negatives.

Hey, the reason I fell in love with the old 760 Tubo to begin with is that it handled and moved superbly, especially for a 20 year old car.

If fuel economy was my only concern, then yes, I might have considered a diesel. But I like just just a little bit of fun when I drive.

My "new" 99 S80 is a real pleasure to drive, although it lacks that charm the old 760 had.

I'm sure there wil be problems down the road as with all cars, and that the S80 will probably have some that I am unable to repair, especially if they are computer related, but that's the chance I take.

So my quest continues.

For the repairable, exciting, reliable ol' Volvo.