I just bought a 95 turbo sedan with 103k miles as my first car and I was wondering when I should replace the timing belt because I have no knowledge of when it was last replaced. In the volvo service book it said it was last serviced at 75k miles and several times before, would the belt have already been replaced.

Should I rather be safe than sorry and replace the belt now, I heard the suggested manufacture replacement was something like 60k miles so if was replaced on time before should I wait until like 120k miles or not risk it and just do it now. I was also wondering where the best place to buy a new one would be, and how difficult/ how much time it would take to replace if this was my first time working on a volvo. Also, could I just take the cover off the belt and tell if it had any signs of wear or damage. I already dished out the 20 bucks to get a haynes manual which is in the mail.

Also, the service light is on now, the dealer said that he performed an oil change but did not have the tool to get the service light off because he was not a volvo dealer himself. Is there any way to get this to turn off without going to a dealer?

Thanks for any suggestions

 

I would definitly have the timing belt replaced just to be on the safe side and be prepared to replace the timing belt tensioner as well. As for difficulty, just remember to TAKE YOUR TIME and pay close attention to your timing marks. I have found that marking the old belt with a paint pen before you take it off and mark the new one with the same marks helps. Being a mechanic I have seen plenty of people push the envelope with timing belts only to end up purchasing new valves and possibly a head when the belt snaps while thy're playing Johnny Racer. Some people go aftermarket with thier replacement parts, but I always recommend OEM for any critical Volvo part. I feel its worth the extra bit of money. I actually foud a company in California that sells Volovo original replacement parts at a fraction of the dealer cost. A complete tune-up kit for my 850 turbo wagon was only $148 with shipping where as my cost at the dealer was over $200. "Pioneerimportedparts" is their e-bay ID. 100 percent feedback and fast shippers. Great people to do business with. They may also have the tool to turn off the service light otherwise it's around $200 if you want to buy it elswhere, other than that the dealer or another European specialty shop may be able to turn the light off. Hope this helps.

 

You can look at the belt and see if it is cracked. If so at all replace the belt. I would also replace the idler and tensioner pulley. They are somewhat known to come apart and wipe out the belt and Head.

It will most likely take you about 4 to 5 hours for a first time.

Is your car a early 1995(OBDI) or a late 1995 OBDII.

Look under the hood by the washer fluid fill. If you see 2 black box looking things you have OBDI.
Then you can reset it your self. You can purchase a Continental belt if you want to. That is who makes them for Volvo.

The service interval for the belt is 70,000 miles.

 

I'm in the same position as you...albiet with about 7k less miles on a wagon. I have all the origninal service records and don't see a timing belt change and i'm at ~98k now. I've read way too many 'my timing belt broke' posts in the past few weeks and have decided to have mine done tomorrow. Knowing nothing about doing a timing belt change, and just not having the time before the holidays, i'm taking it into a shop to have done. i was quoted ~300 parts& labor...which may be high, but the peace of mind that it'll be done right (and under warranty) is worth it to me.

I didn't consider changing the tensioner and pulleys. Is this something that i should really be worried about breaking?

As for your question about the service light reset...here ya go... very easy to do
service light reset

Hope it helps

 

Have them inspect them really good. If it looks at all like grease has been coming out of the bearing area at all replace.

They do go bad and take the belt out as well. Then the head.

 

Hey, I found the directions for getting the service light to turn off and did it pretty easily. I was looking at the service manual and no service has been done since 78,000 miles so I am thinking I should possibly flush out the trans fluid. From the service records my timing belt was probably changed because it seemed to be regularly serviced up until this point. I am probably going to take the cover off and take a look at it just to be sure. 300 does sound like a lot for a 50 dollar part, but I guess there is about 4 to 5 hours of labor involved. I looked online and I found a timing belt replacement kit on ebay that had belt tensioner idler the whole works for 250, is this overpriced (They claimed all the parts to be OEM). I finish my internship and I have two weeks off basically before I take this car up to school so I think it would be a good time to perform any preventative maintenance to it. The dealer I bought it from said that it has new brakes and the routers were ground and they changed the oil but he did not mention anything else being fix. Any suggestions on maintenace that I could/should do to get a fresh start. I was thinking that I could drain brake fluid, coolant, possibly a tune up, but not sure about that. Also, any suggestions on where to get parts would be nice, I've been shopping around on different sites but prices seem to vary a lot. One sight has a headlight lense for 98$ another for only 49$, I need one of these, some bulbs (center console, rear driving light, rear fog light), and possibly tune up / maintenace parts.

 

You can flush/change the fluids.

Look on the spark plug wires the date they were made is stamped on the wires.
Check the cap and rotor as well.

 

look carefully at the $42 headlight lens, it's probably plastic. I found one for around $78 buy-it-now on e-bay.

[IMG]local://upfiles/1493/FBC131F7A01546C2ABED200E676EFB04.jpg[/IMG]

 

Here are some links to ebay volvo 850 right lenses
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Volvo...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/VOLVO...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Volvo...QQcmdZViewItem

Out of these three, the second one looks the most clear, but I'm not really sure because the first one looks basically the same. Can someone with a semi-trained eye look at these at try to give me their opinion of which one looks the best and most like the others. I'm kind of worried if I replaced the one that is cracked with something that isn't the same my headlights will look totally different and kind of silly.
Thanks

 

I checked all my fluids and they all look okay except tranny. My white paper towel turned brown without a hint of red in it, so I'll be flushing that out this weekend sometime. If anyone has some tips or tricks let me know, I'll probably be following the directions on volvospeed.com.

 

The dealer only charges $150.00 and gets rid of the nine quarts of old fluid. In addition, the dealer will replace your fluid with the correct stuff. If you use the wrong trans fluid you will be purchasing a new transmission in the near future. Your brake fluid is DOT 4 and should be replaced every two years. The antifreeze is NOT generic and also should be replaced every two years. My suggestion is not to allow the instant oil places do any of the above work............there was an earlier post where the wrong transmission fluid was used and the result was a lunched transmission. Perhaps the 850 experts on this forum can set you on the right road......I am speaking from a c70 view point.
Reg.