I'm in the market to purchase a used car to replace my 1990 740 wagon (I love it, but it have over 220K miles on it and it is fading). A relative owns a 1995 850 Tubro sedan, and I really like it in general, but she only drives it infrequently so I thought I should get some thoughts on the 850's reliability, something that will be paramount as I am just graduating college. What issues in terms of reliabilty should I be aware of for the 1997 850 T5 sedan?

 

They are great cars for what you can buy them for today. They are a European cars though which means they are a little more expensive to maintain than Japanese cars. The most import thing is to keep the routine maintenance done with the Timing Belt being changed every 70K or five years whichever comes first. They are getting older now, so there will be things that go wrong, but there is not a better car you can buy for around $3,000-$5,000. I own three of them myself and sold all the other cars I own. All three of my children drive Volvos also as does my Mother In Law. If you can do minor work on them yourself, you save quite a bit of money, and you can find out how to do most anything by reading this forum and posting questions.

 

The '95 turbo is a great year to have. You have both OBD-I and OBD-II on the car.

They all have the same problems -odometer gears, glove box latch, seat recline cable, etc. The biggest common problem is with the evaporator for the AC which is a big job to fix.

If you aren't afraid to get you hands dirty and you are mechanically inclined and not afraid to do some work on it yourself they are very fun and reliable. If you need to take it to the dealer for servicing it will bankrupt you.

...Lee

 

One way to reduce the cost of maintenance is to buy OEM parts from on-line vendors and find an independent shop that is willing to accept parts from customers. I would avoid average town shops or franchise shops to service Volvos (or any makes). OEM parts can be a bit more expensive, but the extra cost is well worth it.

See my 1st & 2nd replies at the following thread to get general idea of what an 850 needs:

https://volvoforums.com/m_48928/tm.htm

And many of us buy parts from one or more of the following:

http://www.fcpgroton.com/index-exec/

http://www.eeuroparts.com/home.aspx

http://www.ipdusa.com/

Recall items are fixed by the dealer, free of charge to customers:

http://www.autobuyguide.com/1997/12-...lls/index.html


JPN