Hello fellow 960/V90/S90 owners!

Made the recent purchase of a one owner 1997 965 with 198,000 miles at a local estate sale. Sadly I didn't ask the right questions, and the family was selective as to what information they shared with me regarding the running condition of the car. Hence, I may not actually be putting the car on the road...still in the diagnosis stage of the equation. The seller did tell me that the CEL was on for a temperature sensor...which was true....it does have code P0117 stored. Sadly, they failed to mention the three other misfire codes. So depending on the prognosis, I may be looking at parting the car out...which is a shame because it really is cosmetically a strong car.

So, the question then becomes....what parts of this oddball, under appreciated car have any value? Has a really nice charcoal interior. Leather is near perfect. Dash and door cards are nice, as is the headliner. Transmission shifts well and all the accessories work. Body panels (with the exception of the driver's front fender) are perfect...dark grey...almost looks black. Paint has a great luster over the entire car. (Garage kept) And they include the Volvo factory fitted car cover. Wheels are in great shape with new Continentals.

Judging by the limited traffic on this forum....the market for these cars and their parts are rather selective.

Car shudders under a load, sluggish off the line, but one cruising at say 45 mph in third gear, the perceived misfire seems all but unnoticeable.

May be something minor like a coil pack or plugs....but may be a head gasket or burnt valve/s.

Hoping for the best, but sadly expecting the worst. Any insight or advice would be appreciated.

Oh, and I am a past Volvo owner...had a 1982 245 many moons ago, and owned a beautiful saffron pearl metallic 1998 C70 Coupe with a manual transmission and the high pressure turbo....what a lovely car that was. Spend many a day missing that coupe.

Thanks to all in advance,

Theo
Other cars in the stable currently:
1982 Audi 4000 4E
1986 Audi Coupe GT
1990 Audi V8 quattro

 

A quick update. Found that the engine temp sensor was merely unplugged. Diagnosed the misfire issues, and noted that all six coil packs were original and badly cracked. So, six un-cracked coils from the local pick and pull and she's back up and purring like a kitten. I will replace the plugs later today.

So I won't be throwing in the towel on her after all. I was pleasantly surprised to find five or six 960's in my local salvage yard, so for now I have ready access to additional spare parts as needed. As much as I don't like seeing these cars in the junk yard, I do always appreciate being able to see how they are put together, the quality of the materials used, and the engineers thought process at work. These cars are certainly well thought out, and seem to hold up better than the 850/70 generation cars that brought about the end of the RWD Volvo offerings.

Regards,

Theo
1997 Volvo 965
1982 Audi 4000 4E
1986 Audi Coupe GT
1990 Audi V8 quattro

 

Good luck with the car!! I found that the plugs that go into each coil go bad with heat / age. On our first car I simply plugged the contacts in after removing the plastic plug covers and the damaged wire insulation (be careful to maintain wire polarity). I just ordered Volvo OEM part 9144275 from FCP, which is the plastic plug cover used for the spark coils and was pleasantly surprised that FCP included a pair of Volvo OEM part 3523813 wires for each plastic plug cover. With six of those, the coil connections could be made like new. While talking about the coils, make sure to only use spark plugs that can be gapped to 0.024 to 0.028 inches, per the owners manual. The more modern spark plugs that many vendors sell for the S90 with multi-electrodes have much larger gaps and will NOT be reliable. The Volvo ignition is electronic, but each coil is triggered by the same switched 12 V that was used in the old American stuff and that is what requires the small plug gaps. By the way, the actual electronics that trigger the plugs are on the front and back of the intake manifold, each small assembly operates 3 plugs. If you see misfires from cyl 1, 3 & 5 or cyl 2, 4 & 6 one of the small assemblies might be bad.