Should I buy a 97 850 T-5?

[markntiff]

Hey, I was just wondering if anyone out there has an 850 t-5 or knows anything about them and their reliability. It's a 1997 with 62k miles on it. Do they require repairs frequently? It seems to be in pretty decent shape mechanically. Any info you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[MadeInJapan]

Same as other 850's. Check out this forum and you'll see the typical repairs. A/C evap is one big one....over $1200 repair...whole dash out for replacement. Other than that, unless you toast the engine or tranny, most are not expensive. Flush the tranny every 30K miles or so, and keep engine oil changed with synthetic oil. ABS units all go out but can be rebuilt for about $140 (shipped....you take out, ship it and get it back and reinstall). Enjoy your new ride. Auto or manual? A lot can be done in terms of upgrades to it...easily can get 300HP (check out www.volvospeed.com forum for info).

[markntiff]

Hey thanks for the info! The place I'm getting the car from found the rear seal oil leak that I have heard about and fixed it before they would sell it to me. It is an automatic but it's also bright red so it looks pretty sweet. I had one more question. If you use synthetic oil every oil change do you still need to change it every 3k? Or can you go up to 5k? Thanks again for your help!

[MadeInJapan]

I drive over almost 3000 miles a month in my S70 T5 ('98 model) and use Mobil-1 Synthetic. The amount I drive I would have to change my oil about every month. One reason I went to synthetic oil is so I can prolong the change to every 5K miles and change it every other month. Hope this answers your question. Btw, if you have a turbo, you should be running synthetic oil anyway. Go with the viscosity in your owners' manual. 5W-30 in winter 10W-30 in summer whether regular oil or synthetic.