I'm looking at a 97 850 non turbo'ed. Auto fully loaded. Has a little over 200k on it. Been taken care of very well! And I mean it's almost spotless! He is asking 2k obo for it. I'm new to volvos and I know the timing belts should be done every 70-100k. This car was done about 20k ago. Has a slight miss when going usually up hill but not always. Comes and goes. I know the cel is taken out lol so I'll scan it for codes when I go look at it again. I know all this because my buddy's dad owns it. He just got another 850 so he wants to sell this one since it has 100k more miles. It has blizzak tires with a little under half tread. Prob will need a set before winter. Anything else to look for? I'm thinking I was gonna offer him 1,500 for it. Think that's a decent deal? Btw I'm located in central pa. Thanks!

 

 

Thanks for the vids! When you say ballpark of 60-70.00 a month in maintenance items what do you mean by that? Seems kinda high to me. Right now I drive a 02 ram 2500 with 153k on it and it has the diesel. Only monthly thing I buy is fuel at about 140.00 a tank. Other than that I dont see any other costs for at least 5,000 miles. Im looking for a good cheap car that gets good mpg. Im 22 so I have bills to pay and dont make bank but I make decent amount. Is this the type of car I should be looking at or maybe find something a bit cheaper to maintain? I also do all my own work short of tranny and engine rebuilds. I just figured this was the type of car to buy since I know the history and have proof of all the service thats been done to it

 

You won't think it's kinda high when you are buying parts every month.

It's a 18 year old car. Thing will break all the time. The good thing is, you'll love the ride, we all do. I have taken mine cross country 3 times already this year. Hope to make another trip next month.

On my last trip, while towing a loaded U-Haul trailer, my water pump took a dump. Had to change it in an AutoZone parking lot. Good thing I had the tools, they got the part, and I had the know how, to pull the pump from under the timing belt.

Last 30 days I have been working on the turbo, water pump, and I just got an ignition switch. About $160, new water pump, new ignition switch and used turbo parts. Oh, I guess I should add $36 for my transmission flush. Now I need to spend another $20 on fresh coolant since I lost so much playing coolant roulette.

 

Well it's not gonna gain much mileage. Maybe around 500 miles a month. My buddy's dad drives it about 30 miles a day with no problems. Most current problem is the miss when driving at times. That's been the only thing in the last 10,000 miles. I guess I'll have to look it over real well

 

You can look it over till you pass out. The car is 18 years old, if you drive it, things will break and wear out. When I wasn't driving 1,000 miles per month I was tinkering with things. It's not the end of the world. It's just a fact. The good thing is that you know how to work on things and you can fix it yourself. If you get tired of fixing things, sell it.

 

It's not just the age; these are European cars. Old european cars are just like that, and for a person who likes working on cars, they're great, because they're cheap to buy. If you don't like working on cars, the cost of maintenance is more than car payments. Look at the depreciation of any european car over 15 years and you'll see what the effects are.

Nobody drives a European car to save money. Just throwing that out there for you to contemplate. However, I find that on the 850, parts are really pretty reasonable. for some reason I can't explain, they wear out brake rotors. This car you are looking at, ask the guy when he replaced the ball joints and front drive axles. none of these are expensive to fix, but if you take to a "guy who works on volvos" you'll get to pay him $1000 every time you darken the door.