Oppo! Inform Me! 1996 Volvo 850 GLT

"JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!" (jqj213)
06/30/2014 at 19:55 • Filed to: volvo, 850

For sale is a 1996 850 GLT for about $750. I like it a lot. Drove as if brand new. About 125,000 miles. It just needs some minor TLC outside. Good idea? Bad idea? Tell me about the car. Thanks!

DISCUSSION (9)

m-b-w loves his SUBAROO > JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!
06/30/2014 at 20:02

Get it. Then we can have a cheap OPPO Volvo 850 Meet.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!
06/30/2014 at 20:29

Get it. Biggest problems are PCV system causing oil leaks and other random brokenvacuum lines. Do the timing belt and PCV system right away and you should be good for along time. I used to have an 850R, really liked that car. Then I sold it for a $1500 profit.

twochevrons > m-b-w loves his SUBAROO
06/30/2014 at 21:53

Count me in on that, too!

m-b-w loves his SUBAROO > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
06/30/2014 at 21:59

How hard is it to fix an oil leak? The 1994 I'm getting on wednesday has one.

Volvo 850 > JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!
06/30/2014 at 22:08

Great idea! My parents bought a 95 850 new, sold it to my grandmother in 2001, and my grandmother sold it to her neighbor a few months ago. In that time it has never had a single mechanical problem despite 13 years of neglect. Some interior lights don't work because my grandmother wouldn't replace the fuses, but that's the closest our 850 ever came to breaking. They're fairly fun to drive, comfortable, safe, spacious, and built like tanks. This is the best $750 you'll ever spend.

twochevrons > JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!
06/30/2014 at 22:29

I bought an 850R wagon recently, and although I haven't owned it long, I have done plenty of research!

As someone else has already mentioned, if it is leaking oil, it is probably a blocked PCV system – there's a bunch of plumbing under the inlet manifold that clogs up. You have to remove the manifold to get to it, so it's a bit of a pain to do, but it's a relatively cheap job. If the PCV has been neglected for too long, the end result will be a ruined rear main seal – a transmission-out job – so check for oil drips coming from the bell housing. If it has a turbocharger, the turbo oil return line is another leak source. A good check for a clogged PCV system is to pull the dipstick out while the engine is running and warmed up, and look for puffs of smoke from the dipstick tube.

Mine has the four speed automatic – as far as slushboxes go, it isn't too bad, and it is supposed to be fairly tough (unlike the five speed that the S70 and V70 got). The general consensus seems to be that the engine is pretty long-lived as well. Interstellar mileages don't seem to be a problem – mine has 213,000 on it and still feels tight.

A/C evaporators and heater cores are both weak points. The heater core can easily be replaced with minimal disassembly, but the evaporator requires total removal of the dash and heater box to get to. Volvo offered a pollen filter kit that is supposed to help with the evaporator issue (plant matter would accumulate against the evaporator and cause it to corrode). If yours doesn't have that fitted (it will be under the windscreen cowl), try and find one.

ABS controllers also go bad, but are easy to fix if you are handy with a soldering iron. Otherwise, it's about $100 to have someone repair it. The speedometer (and odometer) get their information from the ABS module, so they'll stop working along with it. Additionally, the odometer drive gear in the instrument cluster can (and does) break, causing it to stop recording mileage. It might pay to check whether this has happened – since they wear their miles so well, there isn't that much outward difference between a low- and high-mileage example. Apparently, they're common candidates for odometer fraud as a result of this.

The '96s got OBD II diagnostics. A shame in this case, as '95 and earlier had a really cool built-in diagnostic system that required no external equipment. A generic code reader will do fine for the basics, but for the rest (transmission, ABS, airbags, service reminder light reset, etc.), the VOL-FCR and Brick-Diag software packages are the tools of choice.

850s are still plentiful enough in junkyards (at least up here in the Midwest), and have decent enough manufacturer support, so parts aren't too expensive or hard to find. The first-generation S70 and V70 were essentially facelifted 850s, so you can often find compatible (and sometimes upgraded) parts there, too.

twochevrons > m-b-w loves his SUBAROO
06/30/2014 at 22:33

If the PCV system is neglected, it will blow out the rear main seal (and possibly others, too), so you'll have to replace the seals to stop the leaks. The rear main seal is on the end of the crankshaft and requires removal of the transmission to get to – entirely doable, but not something to take lightly.

If you're lucky, and it hasn't been going on for too long, replacing/cleaning the PCV system components (and cleaning the corresponding ports in the engine block) will make the leaks go away. Even if the seals are history, fixing the PCV system will at least reduce the pressure in the crankcase, and should reduce the amount of oil leakage.

As I mentioned in my other post, the PCV system is a pretty cheap job (you can get kits with all the necessary parts to make it good as new), but it is a bit of a fiddle, since you've got to remove the intake manifold to get to the system components.

If it is a turbo model, the leak could instead be coming from the turbocharger's oil return line. This is just a matter of replacing a gasket and an O-ring.

twochevrons > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
06/30/2014 at 22:35

Heh, I recently bought a non-running 850R for dirt cheap. Got it running pretty easily, and I'm sure that I could make that much on mine, but I like it too much!

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > m-b-w loves his SUBAROO
07/01/2014 at 01:08

depends on where is coming from. Sometimes fixing the PCV system will fix minor oil leaks. That's not too bad to do, basically just pop the intake manifold off.