97 850 common things to look out for

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...

"mjc13" wrote: : 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:

Owners Manual:

Maintenance Chart:

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

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.)

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 :).

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

(...)

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...