LERN ME: Volvo 850 Turbo Edition

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

And much cooler!

If you can find it, I believe the manual transmission bolts right up to the turbo engine and is even stronger than the auto.

Fantastic cars, made in an era when men were still men and the Swedes owned the company that made some awesome cars.  I miss my turbo Volvo wagon, though mine was a 1994 945T.  Try not to let that one get away.

Very cool, nice find.  Following along.

I loved ours,although it was a needy bugger.

 Brakes,brakes and more brakes it seemed to keep it stopping.

Evap canistor is a must,ours had a 20 cent O-ring fail in the oil pickup so that meant pulling the pan etc to deal with.

 Oem rubber charge pipes will likely fail,replaced ours with silicon pieces....might of had something to do with the adjusted wastegate :)

 They sound nice with a 3" turbo back exhaust as well.

The roof rack looks like it has Thule logos on it, so it's probably not the Volvo branded version (also made by Thule). I've had three sets of the Volvo badged racks. They're great, but it's nearly impossible to find the correct lock inserts for them. Two of mine came with the locks, one did not. My local Thule dealer / bike shop was unable to locate the right lock cylinders, new or used. Regular Thule locks will fit, but they are not clocked properly for the Volvo mounts. All of mine, however, mounted directly to the roof, not the rails like on this car.

As mentioned above, the headlight wipers work along with the windshield washer. They WILL scratch both your glass headlight lenses and the leading edge of the hood. I disconnected mine.

Re: The one non working wiper. The driver's side is easy to R&R. The passenger side is not.

The presence of the headlight wipers indicates the Winter Package, which should also include heated seats and mirrors.

The Prancing Moose badge on the fender tells me that the original owner was at least somewhat of a Volvo enthusiast. Those don't get there by accident.

I sold my Volvo wagon a few months ago because I decided that I didn't need it anymore, but I would absolutely jump all over this one if given the opportunity.

I think RobertDIY has a pretty good buyer's guide video on YouTube if I recall correctly. He really knows these cars and his videos are pretty helpful.

I love me some turbo 5 cyl.

I helped a buddy do the m66 6 speed swap in his v70 and that made it even more of a blast to drive. They're tanks!

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

The roof rack looks like it has Thule logos on it, so it's probably not the Volvo branded version (also made by Thule). I've had three sets of the Volvo badged racks. They're great, but it's nearly impossible to find the correct lock inserts for them. Two of mine came with the locks, one did not. My local Thule dealer / bike shop was unable to locate the right lock cylinders, new or used. Regular Thule locks will fit, but they are not clocked properly for the Volvo mounts. All of mine, however, mounted directly to the roof, not the rails like on this car.

I can confirm this. I have a set of the official Volvo racks for my 854R that came without locks, and had to go down a rabbit hole to a Volvo 340 enthusiast site in the Netherlands before I finally got a NOS set of the correct locks in hand...

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

To be clear, this is the car in question:



The one in the first post I snagged from a BaT auction.

The one on the lift doesn't have the Prancing Moose badging or anything close. The person that owns it is an affluent person that bought it probably because it was sensible and somewhat sporty, but not what I would consider an enthusiast. There were tons of these running around in my affluent New England hometown back then; lots of folks had a thing for Scandinavian near-luxury vehicles. I grew up getting carted around in the backs of Volvo 240-740 wagons and Saabs belonging to friends' parents. 

That said, if it ends up in my care, you know it's getting a pair of those Prancing Moose badges. I mean, it's Ferrari Red, I would pretty much have to. 

What a fantastic find.  You need this car in your life!  Maybe Woody and I come come up from CT and visit it after you buy it!

'93 850 5-speed sedan owner here.  I really do like that car.  Random thoughts:

The plastic generally has not aged well over 30 years, with at least 20 of those in Texas.

It's good that the timing belt is recent.  Let's hope they did the water pump at the same time.

Replacing the PCV is a project on its own.

Odometer gears tend to turn to wax.  Upgraded replacements are available.  It's a little fiddly to do the swap.  You might want to compare the indicated miles with what the computer says.  On that note, my '93 still has the flashing LED to read out OBD codes, miles, etc.  I don't know what year they changed.

Wiper arms and mechanisms may need adjustment to maintain contact with the windshield through the entire sweep.  Odd.

All that said, they are interesting cars.  Agreed on the seat comfort, and being great highway cars.

What an great find!

Swedish Radwood Wagon, its a trifecta of awesome!

Now we play the waiting game. The owner is waiting for their new car to be delivered, so whenever that happens, we'll see about getting the 850. I just hope they don't change their mind! 

Tony Sestito said:

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

To be clear, this is the car in question:



 

Minor point, but that car appears to have the Volvo badged, Thule made, roof bars, which are a very nice thing to have. Also, no factory roof rails, which is generally preferred.

That looks like a really nice car.

Did she order another Volvo wagon?

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

I sure hope so! Not sure exactly, but I would think another Volvo wagon is in their future. 

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

4 bolt was the first year of production only, then they went to 5 bolts.

Nice! One of the few cars I'd rather have as an auto. 
 

I worked as a car porter in 2000-03 for a Volvo dealership. I must have driven hundreds of 850s. I really did not enjoy the few manuals I drove. They had this weird feeling that's hard to explain.
 

If I close my eyes, I can still hear and feel that car and it's 5 cylinder come to life on a cold morning.

Also, my friends mom had one and we thought it was so fast back then. Until we raced an 80s 911!

I test drove one about 10 years ago thinking I might want to go down memory lane. Teal turbo wagon. It wasn't as fast as I remembered, and rattled like crazy, but I think I would have bought it if it didn't start leaking coolant from two different places. The owner literally had to have it towed to a shop during the test drive. That was a first.

And I still kinda want one! Hope this one works out for you.

Talking to my nephew last night, it's still a toss-up whether he ends up with it or I do. Either way, it's getting saved. We have other family members that are trying to get us to give it to them, but it's way too nice/clean of a car to give to them so they can drive it into the ground. It deserves to be preserved. If he ends up with it, I'll get him to do a build thread on it. 

Oh, and the owner ordered some sort of Lexus hybrid CUV in some special red color to replace this. Apparently, they are the opposite of Kurt Russell's buddy in the movie Used Cars; every car has to be the color red! 

Wanted to bump this up, because my nephew acquired the Volvo! And I cannot believe how clean this is. I got to take a very quick gander at it yesterday:







I looked over the car, and this is all I could find wrong:

-Upper windshield gasket trim has shrunken
-The black exterior plastics have faded a bit
-One of the roof rail end caps is missing
-The tail lights have some hazing on them
-There's a scratch on the front PS corner of the bumper
-The hatch gasket needs to be re-glued back on in spots
-The PS headlight wiper arm is missing
-There are some Velcro pads on the dash that need to be removed
-Radio volume knob is scratchy
-The interior needs to be vacuumed

And that's it... and I'm nitpicking. It does have the Volvo roof rack cross bars, BTW. Car smells like the 1990's inside! There's not a speck of rust or even a dent on the thing. 

And in a "it was really meant to be" moment, someone up the road from my place was giving away a bunch of car service manuals, and this was in the pile:


You have to be kidding... it's even the right color!

So the plan now is my nephew is hanging onto it for a bit, and he and my dad will be sharing driving duties for a bit. At some point, he may pass it onto me. He needs to do some fairly major surgery to his GTI, so he's going to drive this while that's down. Either way, I get first crack at it when he moves on from it. It's a real time capsule and 100% stock. He's going to keep it that way, since it's such a low mileage car and it deserves to be preserved.