My Volvo 850 R Saloon

[Andysr]

Well I am now back after having my holiday in Scotland.

I did a total of 1,771 miles and the car absorbed everyone of those miles in true comfort in the only way a Volvo can. I was very very impressed with how easily it coped with the hills outside of my home surroundings. The trip to Inverness was as near as makes no difference 600 miles I completed the trip in 11 hours with 2 fuel stops and 4 passenger stops. I didn't really have to stop for fuel as often but decided to refuel every 300 or so miles that I found a Shell garage so I could maintain 100 percent V Power fuel as that is what the car was mapped to run on.
It would seem that the onboard computer was slightly optimistic with it's reading of 39.9 mpg showing a full tank range of 615 miles, but I did still manage a trip average of 34 mpg which being as it was quite well weighted I was more than impressed with being as I was hoping to achieve between 28 and 30 average on the trip.
The Scottish roads were pheonoenal, unfortunately it did rain most of the time I was in Inverness but I did manage to make the most of one dry spell and get out and enjoy them and the scenery.
On the way home we did a weekend stop over in Edinburgh which included a night on the town and I have to say the places I went to were very welcoming and certainly much much more relaxed than I have ever been used to when out of an evening, as a result I will be going back for another long weekend and undoubtedly more after that as well. :thumbs_up:

Now when I say quite well weighted this is how the car sat with all luggage loaded and all bar me inside the car, as you can see it is sitting rather low but gives me an idea of how the car will look when lowered :thumbs_up:





Luckly even as a saloon the 850 has a fair sized boot so managed to swallow all the luggage....just



During our stay we went along to walk around the remains of Urguhart Castle along Loch Ness so had to grab a few shots..





From which the view is phenomenal





Then a couple more shots of the car just outside Inverness on the A862 along side the Beauly Fifth..





and had a little fiddle with the camera to take a couple of shots in the same place but in black and white, I think they work well..





Once home again the following day my brother and I shot across to RT's to collect his car and you can see by now the car is looking rather filthy after it's trip so now I have a mammoth task of cleaning it up again, still it was well worth it :thumbs_up:



I would like to say special thanks to BobbyCH for the radio mod, it worked perfectly. I was going to refit the original unit on the return but I don't think I can live without the MP3 player in the car now. Also special thanks to Russ and Mark for the work they did on the car prior to the trip having now had a chance to drive the car a total of 2,400 since I do really love the way the car drives and it made the trip hassle free :thumbs_up:

[EdJ]

Great read and congrats on a lovely car. Back in the 80s, I took my test in a D reg 740GLE and ran an M reg 960 for a year or so and understand what you see in Volvos. I love how you've kept the car as original as possible and I simply love the alloys on your car (I remember loving them at the time) and can't understand why more cars don't have the darker alloys as they look so good.

[Andysr]

EdJ said:

Great read and congrats on a lovely car. Back in the 80s, I took my test in a D reg 740GLE and ran an M reg 960 for a year or so and understand what you see in Volvos. I love how you've kept the car as original as possible and I simply love the alloys on your car (I remember loving them at the time) and can't understand why more cars don't have the darker alloys as they look so good.

Thanks for your comments. The first car I drove was an '86 760 GLE estate, it was my parents car, and this was the start of my love for the marque. Tbh I think I prefer the early 700 series cars to most of the Volvo's produced and will probably have one at some stage myself. I am sucker for trying to stay close to the originality but whilst adding individualism as well.

[cosworth330]

Nice pic's.

I was up in Scotland last month with the family (the mother-in-law lives in Scotland). We had a day out at Loch Ness and also went to Urguhart castle and took loads of pic's ! Went to Inverness to see friends. Did just over 2000 miles in 2 weeks. We averaged about 580 miles to each fill up,computer said about 38mpg on a D5. You must be pleased with the fuel consumption on your car,my standard 850R auto used to manage about 28mpg on a run & V70R manual was about the same,my M5 is currently on 18.8mpg average !!!!!

What part of the country are you in, do you ever go to any of the meets or trackdays organised by T5D5 people ?

Cheers Simon.

[799boy]

Really useful write up and a great looking car. I've just purchased a '96 850R manual estate in the same colour. It's a very straight, un-abused car with FSH so quite a lucky find.

Ferrita 'cat-back' arrived yesterday - hope you don't mind but i'll probably pinch a few of your ideas, yours is proving to be quite inspirational!!!

Regards, Adi.

[Andysr]

cosworth330 said:

Nice pic's.

I was up in Scotland last month with the family (the mother-in-law lives in Scotland). We had a day out at Loch Ness and also went to Urguhart castle and took loads of pic's ! Went to Inverness to see friends. Did just over 2000 miles in 2 weeks. We averaged about 580 miles to each fill up,computer said about 38mpg on a D5. You must be pleased with the fuel consumption on your car,my standard 850R auto used to manage about 28mpg on a run & V70R manual was about the same,my M5 is currently on 18.8mpg average !!!!!

What part of the country are you in, do you ever go to any of the meets or trackdays organised by T5D5 people ?

Cheers Simon.

Hi Simon, sounds like you also had a good time in Scotland. Personally I love it, all of my family originate from there and one day I will probably live there myself.

Was indeed very pleased, as were the passengers, with the fuel consumption on the trip. I was expecting at best 28-30 mpg based on previous trips and the added weight of luggage etc I have done prior to the recent work.

I am based in Essex and am yet to visit any T5D5 events tbh I haven't been on the forum for a while now, M5 sounds juicy but I am sure well worth every penny!

[Andysr]

799boy said:

Really useful write up and a great looking car. I've just purchased a '96 850R manual estate in the same colour. It's a very straight, un-abused car with FSH so quite a lucky find.

Ferrita 'cat-back' arrived yesterday - hope you don't mind but i'll probably pinch a few of your ideas, yours is proving to be quite inspirational!!!

Regards, Adi.

Thanks Adi, these grey R's are quite rare cars you know and sounds like you managed to get a good one. Do you have any pictures of the car yet?

No problem to pinch ideas, they aren't secrets and it would nice to have the work appreciated to the point where you want to do them yourself. If you can get a thread started it would be good to follow your progress with the car.

Andy

[Tune R]

Hi Andy,

I just wanted to pop a quick message to congratulate you on the meticulous work you have done on your "R". I thought I was picky with my 850 R, but your attention to detail takes the cake!
Really enjoy reading you posts. Hope you keep us informed of any more enhancements.

Cheers
Steve

[Andysr]

Tune R said:

Hi Andy,

I just wanted to pop a quick message to congratulate you on the meticulous work you have done on your "R". I thought I was picky with my 850 R, but your attention to detail takes the cake!
Really enjoy reading you posts. Hope you keep us informed of any more enhancements.

Cheers
Steve

Hi Steve, thanks for your kind comments.

Another brief update. I have finally got round to doing something about the suspension, and had a but of a result with it too. An acquaintance of mine up until recently owned an 850 R estate with a recently fitted full set of Koni adjustable shocks and -40 mm springs. Unfortunately he decided to break the car, but as a result for me, I got first dibs on the suspension. I wouldn't normally buy second hand parts but I knew these parts were relatively new and hadn't been abused. Upon purchase I set about inspecting and detailing the suspension which ended up with me repainting all four shocks due to stone chipping, sad I know, I also sourced new top mounts, bolts and washers from Volvo. I did take pictures during the process but due to a technical hitch, not saving the pictures I think..., I seem to have none now....

That said I have been out with the car and taken a few shots of how the car sits now,









and before..





....and in comparison to before I am sure you will agree the whole car sits a lot more level with the front not dropping much but the rear coming down enough to level the car without looking too low. I am still experimenting with the dampening rate of the shocks but with them currently set at half way all round I don't think the experimenting will last too much longer as I am more than happy with how it rides currently.
Road holding is very much improved, rather than squating and diving under heavy acceleration and heavy braking the car stays alot more level and under hard cornering the car doesn't dive down to one corner like it did previously and sits a lot more level as a result making turn in more confidence inspiring. Adding a feeling of more to give when cornering under conditions considered over the limit previously with the standard setup. So all in all very happy with how the car now handles, sometimes it's difficult to believe I am driving a Volvo..... :0

That's it for now, until next time thanks for reading and feel free to add your comments.

Edited by Andysr on Wednesday 27th April 23:59

[chriis]

Looking good bud

[AMH82]

Very nice Andy. So you like the Koni's so far?

I'm in a bit of a quandry with what to do with mine, as it stands on original suspension it handles nicely, better turn in than my T5 (Bilstein B4's and FK -40mm springs), but is maybe a little softer.

I quite like the Nivo's on the rear, but they are pricey for new ones. Just not sure how uprated front shocks & springs would fair keeping Nivo's on the back. I don't know if they actually self level in terms of the car overall, or try to maintain a certain height at the rear only.

Looking very nice all round anyway mate

[Andysr]

Thanks for your kind comments, yeah still enjoying the Koni's tbh I think you would be best replacing all the suspension rather than pairing one with another but that's just my opinion. If your happy with how it rides now just replace the existing stuff with new original equipment.

[kerryt5r]

Looking good Andy

[Andysr]

Well it's been sometime now since the last update so I guess it's time for another...

For some time now the condition of the front and rear bumpers, door mirror caps and boot spoiler have bugged me. I have never been a fan of having paintwork done, because I am really fussy, but the need to get the above redone was greater as it was getting to the stage that they were the only areas of the car I focused on and were starting to drag the appearance of the car down.

As I was going to have the bumpers redone I contemplated going back to the textured grey bumper tops, the car has had these colour coded since before I bought it, and I had a fellow forum member mock me up some images of the car to reflect this. Anway I decided that I was going to stay with colour coded bumper tops and I have to say the results are, for me anyway, most impressive. It looks even better than it did the day I got it thanks to what originally was a cheap quick job and a bit of a nasty repair to the o/s/f corner of the front splitter. Despite spending longer due to a few nasties the bodyshop found they kept to the agreed price and I must say the job is better than I expected it to be..

So no more scuffed mirror caps..









No more cracked and chipped front bumper/spoiler.







No more cracked rear bumper or keyed and scuffed spoiler tip..











The keen eye'd will also notice I have opted for a gloss black finish to the spoiler tip, rather than the standard light grey, and also the front lower lip spoiler is gloss black. Again I was unsure about going down this route but after lack of confidence in getting the right shade of light grey for the spoiler tip it seemed only right to have the lower splitter and spoiler tip matching and I think the car pulls it off rather well.

So overall I now have...







After waiting so long to do it looking at it now I wonder why I left it so long... Oh that's right because I am now paranoid about stone chips.... lol

[wackojacko]

O wow, I love your car !

I have been looking seriously into getting a manual 850R Estate.

[Stedman]

Have you thought about getting paintshield Andy? I wish I had it done to protect my front end respray Oh well!

[Andysr]

wackojacko said:

O wow, I love your car !

I have been looking seriously into getting a manual 850R Estate.

Thanks for the kind comments, get one you know you want it!

[Andysr]

Stedman said:

Have you thought about getting paintshield Andy? I wish I had it done to protect my front end respray Oh well!

Yeah I did consider it, just not really a fan as it never looks quite as shiny as the real thing. I know that means it leaves it open to stone chips but hey ho...

At least the pistonheads symbol on the bonnet of yours will protect some of the paint.. lol

[Ecurie Ecosse]

Andysr said:

Stedman said:

Have you thought about getting paintshield Andy? I wish I had it done to protect my front end respray Oh well!

Yeah I did consider it, just not really a fan as it never looks quite as shiny as the real thing. I know that means it leaves it open to stone chips but hey ho...

At least the pistonheads symbol on the bonnet of yours will protect some of the paint.. lol

Your car looks fantastic. Well done on the work you have done.

I recently bought an 850 T5 estate and they are great cars. Terrific value too.

[Andysr]

Indeed they are great cars! Nice to hear your enjoying yours...