I'm new to this car so I'm not sure how its odometer works. Its a 96 850 wagon, everything except the odometer works in the gauge cluster.

Any thoughts on what could be causing this issue?

 

How to fix your odometer

 

Here are the parts you will need to fix the odometer gear.

Odometer gears

 

Thanks,

Any idea on how to find the actual mileage of the car? It was mentioned in the other post that the computer keeps track of it. How can I read this from the computer?

 

I know there is a way on the 94 - 95 Volvos but I think the dealer would have to get it out of the ECU on the 96+ cars.

 

Yup, you will have to go to a dealer.

 

It is a fun exercise to know the real mileage but it is very time consuming to get your odometer to reflect that reality. I just know to add 25k to the mileage read out. Being a '96 it is old enough that most states will let you "exempt" the mileage when you buy or sell so it isn't real critical that it read correctly.

 

I disagree, I think it's very nice to know the exact mileage on a car. I know when I look at my odometer and see that's it's not working I get pretty pissed. I've never seen a car for sale either that said in the add "it's an old car so the mileage doesn't matter". I would never buy a car without knowing the exact mileage. And when I put my new motor into my wagon, I'll be rolling back the odometer to match the engines mileage as well as replacing the gear right away, and I'll keep track of the body's mileage through the OBDI port.

 

Perhaps I paraphrased a bit. Is it important to know the mileage of a used vehicle, yes. Is it important to know the “exact mileage”, questionable (depending upon how exact you mean). I know people that I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a car from them even if it had 250k miles on it and others that I wouldn’t buy from at 40k. How the motor runs, what the fluids look like and how the car drives tells me more than just the numbers on the dash (and don’t forget CarFax). Sure the numbers on the dash can help you look for things the “typically” go wrong with a vehicle at regular intervals even though I have never had an oil leak or fuel pump that cared about the odometer reading.

You are in the same boat as I am, once the odometer stops working for any period of time you need to be careful how you fill out the title if/when you sell the vehicle. You write the mileage in and then you have to assert that the mileage is accurate, admit that it is not, or exempt the mileage meaning I’m not saying its right or wrong.

I fixed my odometer because it makes it hard to track maintenance without it but I’m not terribly concerned that my dash says 175k and the ECU says 200k. Would I advertise that difference, no; I would however make sure to mention to any interested party the true mileage.