Buying a Volvo

Afternoon guys,

Need your advice,

Ever since I saw Rikard Rydell, getting a 850 estate on 2 wheels at Donnington I have wanted one, now my finances and age allow i have seen a "good" example in a local garage and want some advice.

it is a 97 850 T5 in red with a shade over 100,000 on the clock, interior is not mint but no worse than any other 8 year old 100,000 car i have ever seen. Body shell looks OK, and ran OK for 15 mins, no smoke or rattles,

What sort of mileage should I expect from that age car and how many miles should it be able to manage (with regular services) before it goes pop?

thanks for your help in advance.

Ford Man

(ps if your wondering about the name, I used to work for them at Bridgend and was involved with the design of the new Volvo engine line, so if you want any info i may be able to help you out.)

[oilburner]

Hard to say how many more miles there is in her. It depends how well she was looked after for the first 100,000 miles.

If cared for, then you'd expect at least 200,000 miles, then you might be looking at some work on the turbo.

Some people's experience is far worse, others better.


Interesting to hear you've worked at Bridgend. I assume by new Volvo engine you're talking about the yet to be released In-line straight 6?

I'd love to hear some more about that beauty, for instance: what compromises have been made to make an I6 so compact? The other question, the obvious one, is it any good? Worth giving up the 5 cylinder howl for?

[DLM48]

well what price are they asking? has it got good volvo service history? and which T5 is it?

there is a recent thread with someone asking similar questions perhaps you want to read that.
http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/dc/dcboa...ode=full&page=


regards

David

It certainly was an interesting project to work on, what with the quantity and variety of engines going down it I6, V6,8 and rumors of a V10.

From a quality point of view I hope there should be no problem at all, they havn't scriped on the line, with one of the engines going in a £100,000 aston martain.

the V5 howl, was partly due to the I5 configuration which is inherently unstable, and constantly trying to rip it's self to pieces, the I6 is one of the best configurations for internal balancing, the reduction in size has come from not needing the block to be as strong and less balancing needed to stop the engine killing it's self. (this is knowledge from Uni and not from engine designers, I only designed the production line!)

but if your interested in that sort of thing the production lines are a sight to behold! the flexability is so good that in trails we have run an I6, V6 & V8 down the line one after the other at production speed, takt time of 40 odd seconds! and seeing the robots boring a inline followed by 2 "V" blocks is immpressive. (again only if you like that sort of thing!!!)

PS. I know this has gone massivly off topic, so if anyone wants to move this thats ok, but still want your help with the original question.

[sholtby]

The 850 T5 is one of the best performance per £ cars you can buy. They start from a little over £1k these days however a good one will probably be about £2k.
Engines are strong and should last over 200k miles with proper maintenance. You'll most likely need a new turbo before that though.
Give a cambelt change priority if you buy.

Simon

Brief history 854 T5 1995 146k.
80 - rear shock mount
90 - distributor cap, top engine mount
110 - drvieshafts/cv
126 - turbo seal, dash lights
135 - clutch&crankshaft seal.
138 - replaced radiator.
143 - bottom arm /ball joint (passenger).
145 - normal service just done - and no extra work required. My turbo is 'healthy'. There may have been an O2 sensor in there somewhere. I have it since 125k and my old man had it from 45k-125 k. The 125 and 135 jobs were pricey. I've spent about €3000 on it this year including a set of tyres. Seems to have been a bit of a 'hump' though.
My main worries would be shocks and the turbo
Ken
There's a lot of people asking for the same information so I'm going to set up a thread and we can all just direct questions to the search bar.