My 94 850 has had an intermittent fuel smell ever since I bought it 18 months ago. Recently I had the fuel tank safety recall done, and a week and a half later, there was a *very* strong smell of gasoline in the garage and somewhat inside the car (though it's hard to tell if the smell just "seeped" into the cabin overnight). There was gasoline on top of the fuel pump, so I guessed that it was the fuel pump, and decided to call my (independent) volvo guy after the weekend.

Fortunately I parked it in the driveway over the weekend...and later that night I heard a loud explosion. I thought it was probably a kid with an m-80, but the dealer now tells me that all the spark plugs, distributor cap and rotor need to be replaced -- and I just had all new spark plugs installed 4 weeks ago (by our independent volvo guy, who unfortunately couldn't get to the car for a few weeks which is why it's regretfully at the dealer). Is it possible that the "boom!" I heard was actually the car, and caused all those things to blow?? Fuel pressure is supposedly fine which is why they're not recommending a new fuel pump.

Would the fuel pressure test determine whether the fuel pump was bad? So far they've recommended nothing that would seem to fix this fuel problem.

Ugh. Thanks for any advice.