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Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1995

posted by  someone claiming to be Tony on  Tue Oct 30 08:22 CST 2001 [RELATED]

Just wondering if there is any information on here about the approximate life of oe wires, cap and rotor. Car has 76,000 miles and it appears they are the originals. Any information will be helpful. Currently I get approximately 20 mpg average with some highway and city combined. What do you think.

Thanks

Tony







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    Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1995

    posted by  someone claiming to be claude on  Wed Oct 31 02:43 CST 2001 [RELATED]

    in over 230,000 miles I have changed cap and rotor at 30,000 mi. intervals as well as a couple of times at closer to 60,000 miles and felt no perceptible difference in engine performance or mileage. I changed my plug wires out at about 145k miles, again, felt no real change. I think these ignition systems are really strong. Plugs I did at 60k intervals for the first say 180k mi. then more recently I have dropped this to about 30k miles intervals. Maybe I'm just getting a bit superstitious about a high mileage engine? I should mention that mine is a normally aspirated base 855 with manual tranny, '94 vintage.

    Don;t know if that helps any.

    PS one time I went to Napa for cap and rotor and was given a Bosch in a Napa box. Pretty sure these must all come form the same source. As for plugs, I have always run Bosch platinums, though there has been tons of discussion here and also on Saab board re: better results using copper on the turbo engines.

    claude







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    Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1995

    posted by  someone claiming to be Tony Giverin on  Tue Oct 30 12:12 CST 2001 [RELATED]

    Tony,

    FWIW, with 76,000 miles it would certainly be good preventative maintenance to replace the cap, rotor and sparkplugs. I have 162,000km on my '94 (100,000miles) and the original wires are still in good shape with no sign of wear or fault. I have however replaced the cap and rotor and sparkplugs...







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    Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1995

    posted by  someone claiming to be Mike Veglia on  Tue Oct 30 10:49 CST 2001 [RELATED]

    One good way of determining plug wire condition is run the engine in a dark location (garage at night with the lights off for example) and looking for the light show aka arcing. This, combined with a good visual inspection and verification of proper resistance (sorry, don't know the spec for Volvo wires but for Audis it's 10k ohms I believe) will tell you if there is a problem or not. On the 850 you'll need to remove the little cover the wires pass under to do this inspection of course....

    Cap and Rotor I tend to change pretty often, plug wires are more of an as-needed thing for me.







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    Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1996

    posted by  someone claiming to be Kevin on  Tue Oct 30 09:09 CST 2001 [RELATED]

    I've been replacing cap and rotor every 30K, which should be overkill be seems to improve things. I replaced the wires at 100K, and felt no change. On normally aspirated, don't forget the flame trap.







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      Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1995

      posted by  someone claiming to be Gian on  Tue Oct 30 11:05 CST 2001 [RELATED]

      I replaced plugs, cap and rotor, and wires at about 80K (I purchased the car at about 70K) the cap and rotor were worn, the plugs could've been replaced, and one of the wires visually didn't pass my inspection as it was discolored in the part that reaches into the plug-hole. I did see a minor (about 5%) increase in milage. I'd rec. changing the cap and rotor and the plugs, and do the wires if you need them. Haynes or Chilton ought to have a spec on the wires (and they are fairly pricey to swap) so if they visually look OK, I'd check the resistance vis a vis the spec before replacing them.

      When I did it, it looked to be the original cap, rotor plugs and wires, the fact it only produced a minor increase in gas milage shows how robust the 850's ignition system is...







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        Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1995

        posted by  someone claiming to be Ken on  Tue Oct 30 16:33 CST 2001 [RELATED]

        Replace cap and rotor with OEM, Bosch? What is the recommendation? Thanks on the tip to look for arcing..... What type of plugs? Nip? tips?

        Ken







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          Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1995

          posted by  someone claiming to be Gian on  Tue Oct 30 16:50 CST 2001 [RELATED]

          for plugs finding a source other than OEM will not be easy...

          the local spots don't seem to carry much other than delco and autolite

          autolite titaniums are what I have now and they work better than the rapidfires I tried first... (napa sold me 13/16 inch champions the others were Kragen/pep boys)

          I bought OEM cap/rotor and wires from the dealer - you can do decently price wise from one of the online sources... I doubt there's much difference in OEM and Bosch (I can't remember if Bosch was OEM for cap/rotor) for wires OEM was bougicord

          if you change cap and rotor take out the airbox







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            Re: Ignition Wires-When to Replace 850 1994

            posted by  someone claiming to be Markie Mark on  Wed Oct 31 07:17 CST 2001 [RELATED]

            Hi All,

            I have a 94 rhd n/a 850. When i originally asked the dealer how many wires he ad sold he said none. I visited a few on my travels and none of them had the wire in stock.

            On my baby i have just replaced my wires with 8 years on them and about 155k and the King lead also.

            The first time at approx 100k miles i changed my Rotor and cap. I went to a parts supplier, but the parts were inferior than the OEM, so a week or two later after starting problems went and brought new OEM which are made by Bosch.

            My battery just decided to nearly kill me so i have just changed that and this is a Bosch in disguise.

            On the spark point i change these every 10 to 15k depending if i have been making long distance runs or stop/start.

            UK VOC 1994 RHD 850GLT 20V 2L 159k.






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