Yes it has an excellent side impact structure. It does lack side curtain airbags though, which help if you get hit by a truck or SUV. In Europe they don’t have a lot of tall vehicles driving around hitting cars on the side. It also has good small overlap crash protection. The front end is somewhat weak, but it’s not any worse than may other vehicles that are stronger in front and look better in a crash test, but they have weak seat belts and weak airbags that are designed for nothing more than a 170 pound dummy in a car hitting a barrier at only 35 MPH. A car that came out before a particular crash test is going to be better than a later one that was designed to do well on just that test.
It should go beyond 300k miles with proper maintenance. It was designed to go 150k miles without any major maintenance. There’s a lot of demand for that car especially if it has the manual transmission.
I don’t think the backlight bulb for the trip computer display in the cluster is too hard to get to. A gear in the mechanical odomoter will break soon so you can fix that and the light together when they are both broken.
What other features do you need? Built in satellite radio? A backup camera?
It’s the last of the traditional boxy body style Volvos made. The 2.3L turbo version is also one of the fastest front wheel drive cars. The price has been going up over the last few years. The manual transmission version is rare in the USA.
Go to Cars.com, pick used cars, and compare the number of high mile Volvos vs others. Toyota, for example, has many more cars with greater than 100,000 and 200,000 miles than Volvo, on a percent basis.
Yes, it’s on a percent, not total number, basis. For example, within 500 miles of me there are 1714 Volvos for sale, 120 with over 100,000 miles, 2 of which have over 200,000 miles. In comparison, there are 4999 Toyotas within 150 miles, with 746 over 100k and 62 over 200k. So 7.0%/0.1% for Volvo, 14.9%/1.2% for Toyota.
They probably hate volvos where you are? But it is possible that the older Volvo owners do not want to part with their vehicles. With the newer Volvos, there is not that much attachment, given Ford’s desire to convince Volvo enthusiasts to go with a run-of-the-mill model. Recall that Ford said that Volvo owners need to get out of their attachment to the older (in my opinion, far more elegant) model. Of course, they ran the company down to the ground in the process.
Well, you can come up with reasons to explain away the facts, but I’ve seen no evidence that Volvos are unusually long-lived. I have no problem with them, but I do like to point out that their reputation for reliability and long life is more a wish than a reality.
I agree that it may be perception, but I do find my 1997 Volvo 850 not that much worse than my wife’s 2016 Mercedes E250. Yes, it is sluggish and now, after also driving the E250, seems to take forever to speed up, but it is a 167 HP engine, and that shows.
Way I see it is that trusty 17 year old Volvo has gone 150k miles and the current issues are not that major.
Fuses can be an issue with anything that draws high current. A cigarette lighter is certainly one of them and seat heaters are high current items subject to countless thousands of butt/back bounces and squirming. The only surprise to me is that they hold up as well as they do.
Nobody’s gonna disagree that a pro mechanic is gonna have a better chance at resolving this problematic Volvo. Pro mechanics are just plain better at fixing cars than most owners are. They have way more experience and better tools and equipment. Just curious though , is there a specific reason you are stating the obvious in this thread, while not other threads? Are you sensing there’s a safety issue?
I bought my first multi meter at the army signal school store. We were trained in class on how to use it. We never covered that in college. Some rudimentary knowledge is needed though to use it for troubl shooting.
I found that quite often the most common-sense-skilled folks in high-tech science and engineering industrial labs are trained in the military. For one thing, military training seems to emphasize keeping the lab stuff in order, in good repair, and easily found. When the scientists would use the oscilloscopes, they just throw the unwanted ground leads onto – you guess it – onto the ground! We’d have to tell the night cleaning crew to look through their sweepings and put all the ground leads in a coffee can… lol …
Those old cars used heating pads with a wire grid like a bread toaster, sooner or later they fail. I have replaced many of those heating pads, if I had an old car with an inoperative seat heater, I wouldn’t attempt to repair it.
Replacement seat parts for a car that old were likely discontinued years ago, there might be some “universal fit” heating pads to get your electric chair operational.
I probably will also end up not doing so. I just wanted to get a sense for where to look, and also to see if there could potentially be some other issues lurking.
If you’re still around, I’d like to know if you have filled your 850 with 87 or 91 octane non ethanol fuel and compared the fuel economy on the trip computer to the ubiquitous E10.
Hi, i have not used 93 (91 was not available) since a dealer told me not to bother with anything more than 87 in 2000 or so. Yes, I have used 87 both ethanol and non-ethanol. It is hard to get non-ethanol in the midwest. Yes, there is a 10-15% (guess) difference in fuel economy. Hope this helps.
But it is possible that the older Volvo owners do not want to part with their vehicles. With the newer Volvos, there is not that much attachment, given Ford’s desire to convince Volvo enthusiasts to go with a run-of-the-mill model. Recall that Ford said that Volvo owners need to get out of their attachment to the older (in my opinion, far more elegant) model. Of course, they ran the company down to the ground in the process.