1995 Turbo 850 Wagon - burnt smell, iffy gas needle

Post by **vince** » 01 Oct 2007, 14:28

Hello all, It's not my pure pleasure to keep starting new threads, but... The old Volvo decided to act up once more.

When I parked my car this morning after driving to work, the gas level needle was reading something like 10 gallons. I drove home at lunchtime: it's at 6-7, and I restart it to go back to work and it's in the 4-6 range... Looked on the ground, no evidence of gas leak.

Then, I was waiting at a traffic light to enter my workplace parking lot. I idled for perhaps 60-90 seconds, and it smelled like burnt rubber almost the entire time. Let the car idle after parking it, looked under the hood... nothing unusual. Opened the gas stopcock, no evidence of weirdness. I made sure to screw it back past 3 clicks...

To use someone else's terms on a different thread, she's tempting into driving her down the Torrey Pines cliff!!...

Do those symptoms make any sense to you at all? I am planning to open the dashboard to replace the broken odometer gear sometime soon, is there anything else I should attempt while in there? Does that sound too worrisome to you and should I drive in a panic to my mechanic?

Again, thanks for your input.

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 01 Oct 2007, 16:04

The burning rubber smell is a concern but maybe unrelated to your gas guzzling issue. Now, if it were, "I smell gas," it would make more sense. Keep driving and reporting....though you might try pulling codes in the meantime just to see if there are some that are being set- pre-check engine light illumination.

Post by **vince** » 01 Oct 2007, 16:36

Actually I doubt it's guzzling gas at the present time. Now that I remember, the only thing I've changed recently is that I reset the trip computer (the miles per hour, the one furthest to the left). Maybe that helps somehow.

But no, no gas smell whatsoever.

Post by **vince** » 02 Oct 2007, 09:58

Alright,

After driving the car for a day, the burning smell has not come back. Maybe it was just some bad coincidence.

The fuel gauge needle, however, is still playing with my nerves: it did display ~8 gal yesterday (where I'd expect it to be). Then, this morning, starts around 5, goes above 6, falls back around 4. That was after driving on even, flat ground of course.

Will pull the codes when I get a chance, and post back up.

Post by **vince** » 02 Oct 2007, 14:22

Lo and behold, I got the codes.

From the A2 port: 433 and 314 - cam position and rear knock sensors faulty
From the A3 port: 141 and 142.

Any chance one of these sensors has a bearing on the fuel gauge needle?

Anyhow, I cleared the codes (by the way, I hear some metal shearing sound, albeit light, coming from the dead centre of my hood, when I reset those codes! Is that normal?) and will post back in a few days whether those two codes are still there. My CEL was actually on for most of last week, and vanished some time Monday morning, exactly when the gas level needle started to fluctuate unexpectedly.

Any comments? Thanks you very much, as usual!

nine69 · Post by **nine69** » 02 Oct 2007, 18:44

well hey there,

i have the same problem. poor performance, lopes a lot, hard time
accelerating, and two different smells of gasoline. sometimes smells
like plain old gas and other times like "half-burned" gas. i was driving
home with the tailgate open the other day and it almost killed me.

it feels like there might be a valve sticking or something. gas mileage
is around 14-15 miles per gallon where it was 24-25 before the problem.
no gas is leaking that i can see. it just seems to not be burning it correctly.

my assumptions? faulty EVAP, faulty EGR or a vacuum leak. any thoughts?