[By Ozark Lee, taken from this Volvo Forum thread]

I bought a ‘96 a few months ago in Chicago for $550.00 with the doc fees off of eBay, I rented a trailer from Uhaul for $125.00 and then spent another $200.00 or so in gasoline to drag it home. 134 k miles on the clock and it had a loose battery cable - the control arms are shot but otherwise it is a dang decent car for my son - control arms are on the way.

My first 850 I also bought off of eBay and it was $1,300 in Indianapolis. The flight to pick it up from Kansas City was around $70.00. The cab ride to the stealership was closer to $80.00.

The ‘94 had all of the Volvo 850 issues, the odometer had quit, the glove box latch had broken, the sunroof shade was drooping, the rear suspension was clacking.

That was the best $1,300 I ever spent in my life.

Driving the car back from Indianapolis to my cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks, and its twisty roads, was the most fun I have had since I had my Porsche 914 in high school. My Porsche had a few warts as well but it had a soul - that is exactly how I feel about the 850’s. As a side note, the heater works a lot better on the 850 than it did on the 914 so the soul is warmer.

I am a decent shade tree mechanic. These cars will eat you alive if you take them to the dealership for repairs. They are also quite intuitive to repair and if you have decent mechanical abilities they are not hard to fix or maintain.

I have seen the other posts that suggest Hondas or Toyotas and other cars that have no soul. If pure reliability without minor issues along the way is your objective that is where you should go.

I got 38.8 mpg today on the way to work in my 1997 Volvo 850 T5 sedan. But don’t be shocked, it was not representative of a real world drive: 10.4 miles, highway, one way only, and the meter started after I acellerated to highway speed. My usual combined mark is 23 mpg.On 50-mile runs I’ve gotten over 30. But in-town is much lower, sometimes in the 17 range. These 5-cylinder engines have the widest city vs. highway difference of any engine I’ve had in a car.

If your trunk fails to latch when you close it, it could be the receiver. Mine got pushed down somehow, causing a temporarily inexplicably-non-latching trunk when I got my 850 back from u-Haul. (I had them install a trailer hitch.)

Hmm.

After some investigation, I adjusted the receiver loop up (star bolts) and it was once again normal. You have to remove the plastic trim to get to the bolts, but this is trivial.

Overview: How to change the distributor cap and rotor on a 1997 Volvo 850 GLT.

This job requires removal of the battery and then the bottom half of the air filter box in order to reach the bottom screw on the distributor cap. Including taking the photos, the whole job of removal and replacement took 2 hours (first time).

1) Common tools: a standard screwdriver for the distributor cap screws and a wrench or socket to disconnect the battery terminals.

Less common tools: You will need a 3mm hex key (pictured below left) for the rotor and a slim ratcheting driver with Torx bit (pictured below right) for the vacuum switch.

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