Teach me the ways of Swedish Wagons.

I love my 9-3 combi even with the automatic. The tiptronic feature is actually pretty decent too. I have a good friend with an XC70, which I also like a lot but feel that the interior is a little cheaper. As mentioned above, the AWD system can be maintained to not self destruct. On top of that, the repair procedure is pretty well documented and there are a few driveshaft shops across the country that repair them.

Having other (older) Saabs, the oil life monitor kinda bugs me, just because I don't think oil, even synthetic, so go so long in a turbocharged engine. I have an intermittent problem with the drivers window anti-pinch feature that bugged me when I bought it. I also find it annoying that while the buttons are all there for a phone connection, they won't do anything on US models. Fuel economy is fantastic if you stay out of the boost.

There are also a number of Saab tuners that can give you a pretty significant bump in power for a couple hundred bucks. (brewcityboost) There's also a fair amount of people nerding out with their own ECU tunes. (T8suite)

The seats are great. The back seats seem to not have much room, but I've sat in the back and not minded at all.

Whatever you buy, get a rubber trunk mat. Cleaning spilled beer from a rubber mat is a lot easier than carpet (likewise for other spills).

I will say this about the Volvo 2.4 I5. It makes a glorious sound when at WOT and 6000 rpms

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I do read the BT. I was busting your balls, same as you were busting mine. :-P

Oh. I wasn't busting your balls, just trying to say that it wouldn't be all that simple.

9-2x ftw, great looking car IMO.

Really it has the best options for upgrades as well, easiest to tune, powerful and strong replacement components. I don't think any modern volvo or saab wagon can compete with any of that.

Sure it's technically a Subaru but it is IMO the best post-GM saab.

I have a 2001 9-5 wagon, 5spd and I've been really happy with it. The 2.3 turbo makes great power stock and is a torque monster with an ecu reflash. It's also probably one of the best handling fwd cars I've ever driven. For the price they sell for now they are hard to beat.

tuna55 wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I do read the BT. I was busting your balls, same as you were busting mine. :-P

Oh. I wasn't busting your balls, just trying to say that it wouldn't be all that simple.

I thought you were referring to my ill-fated rotary-swap Colt project that sat around until I sold off the engine and car in two separate deals. Sorry. I'm still bitter over that...it had so much potential to be a cool project.

Storz wrote: I have a 2001 9-5 wagon, 5spd and I've been really happy with it. The 2.3 turbo makes great power stock and is a torque monster with an ecu reflash. It's also probably one of the best handling fwd cars I've ever driven. For the price they sell for now they are hard to beat.

Was the 2.3 the one they had engine sludge issues with? I realize a lot of that was due to poor maintenance, but still, since I'm looking used, that's a concern.

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I do read the BT. I was busting your balls, same as you were busting mine. :-P

Oh. I wasn't busting your balls, just trying to say that it wouldn't be all that simple.

I thought you were referring to my ill-fated rotary-swap Colt project that sat around until I sold off the engine and car in two separate deals. Sorry. I'm still bitter over that...it had so much potential to be a cool project.

I remember that, it did have potential. Too bad. Want me to bust your balls about it now?

Go for it.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Go for it.

OK. It holds the honor of being the only car that I have ever stubbed my toe on the (installed) motor mount while in the passenger seat.

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

Storz wrote: I have a 2001 9-5 wagon, 5spd and I've been really happy with it. The 2.3 turbo makes great power stock and is a torque monster with an ecu reflash. It's also probably one of the best handling fwd cars I've ever driven. For the price they sell for now they are hard to beat.

Was the 2.3 the one they had engine sludge issues with? I realize a lot of that was due to poor maintenance, but still, since I'm looking used, that's a concern.

Yes, although I believe later model years had the issue corrected. I owned an '01 9-5 wagon as a DD up until a few months ago, and would echo Storz comments. Great car, I really liked it. If you can find one that the owner can prove was maintained, I wouldn't worry about the sludge issue.

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

Storz wrote: I have a 2001 9-5 wagon, 5spd and I've been really happy with it. The 2.3 turbo makes great power stock and is a torque monster with an ecu reflash. It's also probably one of the best handling fwd cars I've ever driven. For the price they sell for now they are hard to beat.

Was the 2.3 the one they had engine sludge issues with? I realize a lot of that was due to poor maintenance, but still, since I'm looking used, that's a concern.

Indeed it was

There's an 850 wagon near me for sale... 5 speed, runs and drives, 200k, needs a front axle and suspension arm but seems pretty solid. Price is in line. Thoughts? I've always heard the automatic was the weak point on these cars, anything else to watch for?

if it's a 5 speed, the transmission is pretty stout. It is even stronger than the auto used in the turbo R cars from what I have heard

volvoclearinghouse wrote: There's an 850 wagon near me for sale... 5 speed, runs and drives, 200k, needs a front axle and suspension arm but seems pretty solid. Price is in line. Thoughts? I've always heard the automatic was the weak point on these cars, anything else to watch for?

Is it a turbo or n/a? I had good luck with mine, I did a ton of work to it over the years but most of it was stuff I knew about when I got into it. (Shocks, mounts, control arms were all shot, etc)

As long as the car is solid and seems well cared for other than the known problems I would go for it. They're easy - easy to work on and generally reliable.

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

Storz wrote: I have a 2001 9-5 wagon, 5spd and I've been really happy with it. The 2.3 turbo makes great power stock and is a torque monster with an ecu reflash. It's also probably one of the best handling fwd cars I've ever driven. For the price they sell for now they are hard to beat.

Was the 2.3 the one they had engine sludge issues with? I realize a lot of that was due to poor maintenance, but still, since I'm looking used, that's a concern.

I passed on an otherwise nice 9-5 wagon because the oil looked like a milkshake.

dculberson wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: There's an 850 wagon near me for sale... 5 speed, runs and drives, 200k, needs a front axle and suspension arm but seems pretty solid. Price is in line. Thoughts? I've always heard the automatic was the weak point on these cars, anything else to watch for?

Is it a turbo or n/a? I had good luck with mine, I did a ton of work to it over the years but most of it was stuff I knew about when I got into it. (Shocks, mounts, control arms were all shot, etc) As long as the car is solid and seems well cared for other than the known problems I would go for it. They're easy - easy to work on and generally reliable.

Haven't seen the car in person yet, but ad seems to indicate N/A. Any significant issues with either?

In reply to dculberson:

If it's an unmolested 5 speed 850 in the US it's N/A.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

Lemforder is the OE supplier for control arms, FCPEuro carries them. A lot of folks have had issues with parts store reman axles, I've done several on S70s/850s with no issues, but did have one from O'Reily's bite me in the ass. Raxles is highly recommended for OE rebuilds, but turn around is longer than going to a parts store and buying one, if the car already has aftermarket axles on it Raxles doesn't want anything to do with them, i.e. won't accept them as cores.

There's nothing inherently unreliable about the 850 Auto. It has it's faults, i.e. a non-serviceable filter, you'd have to remove the trans and split the case to get to it. There's documented cases of higher mileage units biting the dust after a trans flush, loosing up junk that eventually clogged stuff. Synthetic fluid results in harder shifts, witchcraft. There are turbo cars reliably putting 300 Hp to the wheels through autos, though that is generally considered to be the extreme upper limit for the auto. Swapping the manual from a N/A or later 70 series is a common mod, Quaife makes an LSD for the manual, and it's known to easily support 500+ Hp.

About 2 or 3 years ago I did a trans fluid drain-and-fill, accepted maintenance recommendation over the power flushes, for reasons mentioned earlier. I've ran an auxiliary cooler since my engine swap 5 or so years ago. I did the drain-and-fill with AMSOIL auto trans fluid, the concern of clogging the filter convinced me to install an in-line spin-on style filter in the line to my trans cooler. I put a Derale 13090 filter kit in line between the transmission and the aux cooler I'm using, I did two drain-and-fills about 1000 miles apart changing the filter between each, I haven't had any issues at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TGzXTbOBwM

• Lee

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

dculberson wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: There's an 850 wagon near me for sale... 5 speed, runs and drives, 200k, needs a front axle and suspension arm but seems pretty solid. Price is in line. Thoughts? I've always heard the automatic was the weak point on these cars, anything else to watch for?

Is it a turbo or n/a? I had good luck with mine, I did a ton of work to it over the years but most of it was stuff I knew about when I got into it. (Shocks, mounts, control arms were all shot, etc) As long as the car is solid and seems well cared for other than the known problems I would go for it. They're easy - easy to work on and generally reliable.

Haven't seen the car in person yet, but ad seems to indicate N/A. Any significant issues with either?

No, both are reliable. The turbo makes the car faster - and of course more fun to drive - but complicates maintenance a lot since there's the intercooler piping in the way of a bunch of work. The n/a cars aren't inspiring acceleration wise but with the stick it'll make it fun. The n/a cars are super easy to work on, in my opinion.

I have brought this up before as well, but we sold our 850 at somewhere around 450000 trouble free kilometers. the new owner is a neighbor and still drives it daily 5 years later. But as mentioned the engine is interference fit and you do need to do the timing belt. I would not go 100000 km either. Ours broke at about 60000km which I think is the reccomended service interval. Its very short compared to other cars and may even be 40000km. That was a $4000.00 mistake that I cannot blame on the car.

Easy to do a timing belt? I'm not used to these funky sideways engines driving wheels that also steer.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Easy to do a timing belt? I'm not used to these funky sideways engines driving wheels that also steer.

Yeah it's not a bad job, I think I could do it in under 2 hours. I always recommend water pump too, so draining, filling, burping coolant adds time. There are special tools, but I've never used them, just look at the timing marks, line everything up, or mark the crank/cam pulleys with a sharpie.

• Lee

Calling a Volvo 850 reliable/durable is fine in the context of other brands, but next to the 700- and 900-series RWD Volvos, they were flimsy pieces of E36 M3.

Had a 940 Turbo wagon for a while. Loved the car.

Funny Story on having a large manually shifted brick. one night I got pulled over after sitting at a light. It was a smooth road, so was sitting in neutral with my foot off of the brake. Light went yellow the other way, so I stepped on the clutch, put it in gear, and went once it turned green. cop behind me lit up.

Pulled over for him, he was using the excuse of "no brake lights' to check for being drunk (it was 2 am), and he had never seen a car the size of the 850 with a manual before. He thought they were all autos.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Easy to do a timing belt? I'm not used to these funky sideways engines driving wheels that also steer.

Super easy. Fcp has a nice walk through video of the job.