Alright so here is the story.......Lately my volvo has not been running to its full potential. Sometimes during acceleration the engine shakes at 3000rpm till about 4000rpm ONLY sometimes though. In my experience that shaking is from a missfire. I am getting Check engine lights every day. Sometimes the car runs fine, and sometimes it does not. I have pulled the codes and the usual ones are P1310, and P0305, both of those being missfire codes. The other day i also got a P0172(system too rich). All of these problems started when the cold weather came into Minnesota.
Any ideas on how to stop these problems?

 

Just to add another observation i just checked the oil and it did seem low, but my main concern was that on the dip stick the the whole way up had a white film on the dip stick and also had darker little chunks of something on on the dip stick. This does not seem to be leading to anything very good. Hope these observations help.

 

Is the OIL the same color?

Or is it just towards to the top of the dipstick?

Has the car had a tuneup lately including cap,rotor, and wires?

 

No the oil seems to be regular colored. All of the foam seems to be on the upper part of the dipstick. I can also see quite a bit of foam in the tube that the dip stick goes into. The car has 148,000 miles on it and i have no idea when the car has had its last tune up or anything.
I think my wish list for X-Mas is gunna be a tune up, oil change, and a new timing belt because i have no idea about that ethier.
What causes that white foam on the dipstick?????

 

In cold weather, you are going to get more water condensation in the engine. The white film that you see is excessive water mixed in with the oil.

If I was about to take about 20lbs off of my belly, I would be able to change oil in my 850 without jack and jack stands. I just can't get my belly under the front air dam to reach oil drain plug. I didn't try approaching behind front wheels. On most other FWD drive cars, I need jack and jack stands in order to reach oil filter. On our 850's, it is located just in front of passenger's side front wheel -- no need for jack and jack stands.

Purchase Castrol GTX 10W30, Hastings Premium/NAPA Gold/Wix/Mann/OEM filter, and aluminum crush washer for oil drain plug. With rubber latex gloves, I am able to remove oil filter without strap-style wrench.

Slowly pour 1/2 quart in oil filter and rotate filter to allow oil to soak in real good.

Our 850's require somewhere between 6 and 6 1/2 quarts, so insure that you allow time for oil to flow back into oil pan while getting level up to the full mark on dip stick.

Pour old oil into two old orange juice or milk plastic containers. Take containers to any oil change facility, repair shop, or recycling center to have oil disposed of properly.

 

Yes the foam is from condensation. It is not an major thing wrong. I see quite a FEW cars with it. When the weather gets colder it will happen. You don't need to change the oil every time you see it. If it looks really bad then do it.