yesterday, my brother and i replaced the passenger side axle on my 93 850 glt. the cv joint was so bad the car and steering wheel would shake violently, and i had to drive it about 30 miles @ 20 mph to get it to my grandpas garage (we did the work there because its heated). near the end of my drive, the shaking kept getting worse and worse. i kept telling myself that i would make it. after i parked in the garage, my gandpa said to pull out and back in since the lighting near the door was better. half way through my turnaround, the joint finally snapped. had my drive been another half a mile, i would have been royally screwed. as i read this i realize it was a lot funnier in the moment than reading about it. it also helps to know the history ive had with that car. i bought it about 2 yeas ago and it hasnt gone more than 2 months w/o needing some kind of work. MAF went bad, fuel line popped out of fuel rail, fuel pump seized, tire blew out, timing belt broke (engine runs like a dream w/ head rebuilt), kept eating through serpentine belts and found out tensioner pulley had dry rot and was half gone, windshield wiper came loose, tie rod was on the verge of snapping, and finally cv joint. assuming nothing else brakes (you know what they say when you assume, except this time itll be just me) breather system and EGR valve will be replaced in the spring. and yet, i still love this car. i have hopes of seeing the odometer roll over back to zero. i figure in about two year ill have replaced everything on the car anyway, and ad the other 750K wont bee too bad.

 

Welcome to the club!!!


JPN

 

i forgot a few things, the guy i bought it from was... well let's say "simple." when the pcv valve locked up on him he got it replaced, and instead of say "it's fixed, if it happens again we'll deal with it then," he said to himself "i'm going to make sure this doesn't happen again by drilling 4 small holes in the valve cover around the oil fill spout, and zip-tie a piece of a sock around them to keep dust out." my engine was puking out a quart of oil every 50 miles. i took care of that right away. the car had sat for so long before i bought it the rotors had rusted so bad that my front rotors have a 1/8th inch groove cut in them from the break pads, the rears were even worse, so they've already been replaced. and to top it all off my dash is messed up since someone thought it would be a good idea to bust out my window and try to steal my stereo, they had wedged the deck in so bad it was stuck so they took just the face plate and my ipod. i'm a pretty firm beleiver in karma, so all this bad luck has got be storing up my credit for good luck, hope.

 

Yes be prepared for a rush of good luck!!!

On the other hand, the previous owner & the idiot thief will pay for their malicious deeds[8D].


JPN

 

i don't wish the preveious owner any ill will, i just hope in the futur he has the good sense to take his cars to a mechanic so they can be fixed properly. the machine shop that rebuilt my cylinder head told me that the valves were in such a horrible state, they were amazed the engine ran long enough to break the timing belt. that statement gave me a lot of hope for the rest of the car to survive long enought to reach my goal of 1,000,000 miles. as far as the thief, stuff can be replaced, but it's irritating that they broke the custom stereo mount i made and i think the damage to my dash won't let me use my design when i put the deck back in. i kinda hated the ipod anyway, i'm a fan of creative labs products, their sound quality blows apple out of the water. well, that's my rant for this morning, i just clocked in and should probably get to work.

 

FYR to keep your 850 going as strong & long as possible. Scheduled maintenance is the key for success.

See my 1st & 2nd replies:

https://volvoforums.com/m_48928/tm.htm


JPN

 

thanks a lot, that one's going in the bookmarks.

 

when your maf went bad what were the symptoms?

 

mix was really rich, so balck exhaust all the time. and, if i didn't have the car running every day for at least a few minutes it would take about 4 hours to get it to run.