From time to time, folks post about whether or not to buy an 850. The answer is simple, with caveats. Yes buy the 850 IF it's not a '93 or '94 AND it has had (1)decent maintenance.
My '96 850 turbo is my love child. I used to be in the car business for
6 years and had the occasion to drive literally hundreds of cars as what we call in the US -- demos. Cars driven by salesmen/managers for 3k miles then "retired" and sold at cost (less hold back, of course :)) (ok hold back is typically 3% of the mystical 'invoice' price... all this stuff is scarcely secret anymore for anyone wanting to know... the invoice is roughly 10% of the MSRP, except in the case of really cheap base models where invoice is less.) at ANY rate, my '96 Volvo 850 turbo is the car I have enjoyed more than any car I have ever driven. Folks, that encompasses a lot of personal experience/data. Just today, I drove on a large mutlilane highway, and instead of looking to merge as I sped up the on ramp, I passed 3 cars going onto the roadway. The boost gauge was indicating a good measure of boost, and the car went from 45mph at the inception of the onramp to 85mph at the terminal merging point. All the traffic was in my rear view mirror.I have 128k miles on the clock. It's such a solid nice car. There will be a naysayer or 2 that have not had very good luck, but then we must retire into the realm of statistics to explain that. Did your car have all the maintenance,etc. If everything was perfectly done and you still have an auto with issues, you might have an outlier. AKA, a statistical anomaly.
Nothing is impossible, but I will vote, after much research, and personal experience, that definitely YES, buy the car, especially if it's a turbo. There is nothing quite like pressing the accelrerator pedal to the floor and feeling your body pressed strongly back into the seat as the laggard party impeding your progress disappears rather abruptly in the rear view mirror. It will cause you to entirely forget about your boss and what he said... even if your boss is the IRS or some other omnipresent entity.
Cheers!
(1) timing belt and water pump every 60k miles... front control arms at
100k indifferent of condition, fuel filter at 100k indifferent of condition, spark plug wires at 100k indifferent of condition, spark plugs every 30k miles indifferent of condition, air filter every 10k miles indifferent of condition, only 93 octane gas indifferent of what you can afford, flush the coolant system every 20k miles indifferent of condition, use only synthetic oil and Volvo oil filters. And last but not least, the transmission... ah, what a story here. It's a FWD rig folks... front wheel drive. Volvo indicates that it never needs service.... that's an optimistic assertion emanating from people with good intentions. But it was good intentions that paved the road to hell. I have been flushing mine every 3rd oil fill, aka 12k miles, and the cars shifts hard and strong. It's a fine machine, treat it that way.If this sounds like "too much trouble" you might better get a Toyota. But then there is always a trade off... it's like the guy said, "you get what you pay for" and I would amend that to say... "something is only as good as you make it."
As a final last note, if my wife said "You get rid of that hot rod Volvo or I'm leaving you." I'd have to say, "I sure will miss you." And get in my 850 and head to a nice hotel.
Fred aka Steve aka misc