Howdy folks,

Just bought my first 850 last week after years of driving a few red blocks. It's a 96 855 GLT with 233k on it - well maintained for it's mileage. Very smooth engine and transmission and pretty tight suspension. Many other good things as well. I'm excited.

But it does have its issues which I would like to take care of, not the least of which is my feet get really cold when driving (I'm in MN so it's significant). Heat works well, it blows nice and hot and the blower motor is healthy, no heater core problems; it's the switching to the heat at feet setting that seems to not be functioning properly. When I switch from vent or def to feet, baffles definately close and the vents and def stop blowing, but the foot vents don't really change from their persistent trickle (same persistent trickle that seeps from vents and def too). What am I up against here? Am I gonna have to tear apart the dash a whole bunch just to diagnose this? Switch or baffle actuator probabilities?

Radio button lights - about half of the buttons don't illuminate. I presume these bulbs are simple enough to get to, I know the radio slips out easily anyway. I just ordered my Haynes book on Thursday and so don't have a reference manual to help guide me quite yet. Tips? And are they the same little bulbs that were all over the 240 and 740 interiors? Am I gonna have to enter the radio code after this? I have it but would have NO idea about how to reenter it.

One last quickie - driver's door, door stop catch detent spring thing - it's toast. But while thuroughly cleaning the interior yesterday, I came upon the replacement part in a ziplock under the front pass seat. Nice, I think to myself, a quick swap. I removed the fasteners at the bottom of the door panel and managed to squeeze my paws up and into the access port behind the stop. I got the old broken one out but couldn't get the new one in. It seemed that the window track was preventing the necessary access. Am I right? Window track have to move? Or just a more complete removal of the door panel so I'm not contorted and pinched.

Thanks in advance. I hope my note didn't get too long. I'm gonna go drive around for a while. : )

-Steve in Minneapolis
1996 855 GLT 233k, 1988 745 GLE 146k, and former 240s