Hey Guys,

I'm a n00b on here but I've already been enjoying this a forum a lot!

I recently bought a 1997 Volvo 850 Non-Turbo for my wife to learn to drive as her first car. It has a broken odometer that's stuck at about 117,000 but according the the previous owner, it should be somewhere between 135,000 and 140,000. I've got it parked right now and I'm going to take it to do the timing belt sometime this week. Meanwhile I'm going through and giving it a much needed tune-up. The CEL was on with a few engine misfires, but as soon as I got some better gas in the car and cleared out the codes the misfires away. I think it just needs a little TLC. Every once in a while it still stutters when going up hill and giving it some gas.

I changed the air filter, plugs, wires, distributor cap, and rotor today. When I was taking the distributor cap off I noticed that only the top two screws were screwed in and there was a crack at the top near the rear screw. When I pulled the distributor off there was a little bit of oil in the distributor cap and also the plugs were pretty fouled up. So I'll find up tomorrow if runs better on the street. Has anyone seen this before???

Also I noticed the first couple times I started the car, it would run fine for about 20 seconds then it would skip strangely once or twice then run well. After restarting the car a couple times now the engine seems to run perfectly. Is there anything I need to do to the cap or rotor tomorrow before I take it for a drive? I've verified that all the wires are in the correct order and I'm not throwing any CEL codes.

I bought a new odometer gear and I'm going to change that out this week as well. What grade of fuel and oil are you guys running in your cars?

 

Also does anyone know any decent Volvo repair shops in the Greenville, SC area?

 

The oil is most likely from the rear cam seal.
You should run premium gas in the car.

 

Thanks Tech! We have 87, 89, and 93 here, so I've been putting in 93 and it seems to have less problems.

I think the bottom of the distributor was not sealed because the bottom screw was not even part way installed. Also when I pulled the spark plug cover off, there was a good bit of oil sitting in the top part of the engine near the spark plug wires. There are no oil marks in the garage yet so I'm assuming between that and the jiffy lube sticker in the window that the "highly advanced" jiffy lube people spilled oil when they tried to fill the car. I'm going to leave the cover off for a few days just to make sure. I ordered a 10-pack of oem volvo filters from fcpgroton and i need to change the oil this week. Do you know what type of oil has probably been run in the car? Should I move over to synthetic or would it be better to stay normal oil? What do most people run in these cars?

 

The oil type varries. Most lube places like that have moved to a synthetic blend oil.
You can run what ever you want to in the car.

 

The oil in the top part of the engine is a common complaint. It COULD be from careless pouring, but if it's black like used oil, it's likely from a bad oil cap seal. You can buy a seal from FCPgroton, or a whole cap from a parts store.

 

Ahh, Thanks Carrots! That would make sense. I'll get one of those next time I order some parts from fcpgroton.