'93 850 loss of power.....question for the expert - MATT

Quondo · Post by **Quondo** » 25 Apr 2005, 08:58

Hello Matt,

Had this car for 5 years with hardly a problem....till now!

I had a scary situation over the weekend where I was driving my family in our '93 850 when all of the sudden, the dash lights came on and the car had a total loss power. The car behind us had to swerve to avoid rear ending us. Thank goodness there was a gas station close by for me to coast into. I tried to restart the car, but with no luck. Needless to say, it was a confusing, frustrating and extremely scary situation for me and my kids. After a long while, the engine did eventually start and we just wanted to get home quick! I have searched this entire website for similar problems and there seems to be a few. However, each solution to the problem doesn't seem to be the same. I am leaning more towards the problem being a faulty fuel pump/fuel pump relay or even the battery that operates the fuel pump relay. I am curious to see what you think Matt. We don't have much money and am hesitant to go to a Volvo dealer. Are there perhaps any recalls that you know about for this problem? Many thanks from a grateful family.

Post by **matthew1** » 25 Apr 2005, 20:20

Thanks for the ego boost, but I'm just a web developer who's done a few repairs to his 850.

Having said that, after reading about four million Volvo chat board posts in the last four years, I can say that you should always work from simple --> complex in terms of what to try.

I'd look at your relays and fuses. Maybe reseat them. Poke around the engine bay looking for things that don't seem to have a home. Vacuum tubes, battery connections etc.

Then I'd look at the battery. A weak battery can be the cause of strange, non-electical-related syptoms. If it's been 3 or more years since your battery was new, it's not a bad item to replace anyway.

Let us know what you find.

White850Turbo · Post by **White850Turbo** » 26 Apr 2005, 05:33

Check your codes and reference them here. If you don't have any codes or no codes that would cause stalling, chances are very good that the problem is fuel related. Volvo says that the fuel pump relay should be replaced every 10 years due to cracking of the plastic and moisture causing problems. If you do decide to go that route, 2 places that will save you big bucks over the dealer for parts are FCP Groton and EEuroparts.com.

Good luck and let us know if you have any more questions.

Quondo · Post by **Quondo** » 26 Apr 2005, 07:37

Thank you Matt and thank you White850Turbo. Out of what I could find so far regarding this problem, it seems 65% of all those affected said that the fuel pump relay was to blame or its battery. That's good that it's been pinpointed to that....but what of the other 35%!?!

Anyways, I will start with that. Many thanks fellow Volvo brothers and especially to MATT!

Post by **matthew1** » 29 Apr 2005, 10:55

I'm locking all 850/S70/V70 engine stalling threads and forwarding traffic to one comprehensive thread:
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/chat/p ... php?t=3484

Thanks