My wife's 1991 740 wgn was running poorly after a few hours of driving. She said that the RPM needle was bouncing all over. She thought it wouldn't make it home & left it about 10 miles from our house. I went to retrieve it the next day. It started & seemed to be okay. I let it warm up. As I accelerated from a standstill onto the hwy it stuttered twice. Two brief hiccups in a row; then, ran smoothly for all 10 miles then hiccuped twice again as I pulled onto our property. I'm thinking fuel pump relay? Computer? Electrical problem? Fuel problem? Help! thanks, Bryan.C

....1800es. cleared up with new plugs/pionts.

Thanks. No points. Changed plugs before I drove it. It has one of those expensive cap & rotor set-ups mounted in the rear end of the valve cover which I have never changed.

My first thought was fuel pump relay but the last time I bought one (last month, different car: '89 Volvo 240) it turned out to be the plugs. So, this time I started with the plugs.

Intermittent is hard to test. I don't see the pattern, yet. Help!

The FAQ's have a lot on this. With my 1990 760 Turbo, I had the same stuttering on occasion, but normally it would just die and restart normally when I had rolled to the side of the road. As it happenned more often, I checked to see if the tach needle would fluctuate when I cranked it and it did not start.

The FAQ's led me to many possible causes, but the most prevelant were the FP relay and the radio supression relay as well as bad grounds. I resoldered the relays (childs play...trust me, you can do it). Apparently, on some 700's the actual plug for the relay which will look melted...I think Volvo actually calls it the fuel injection relay.

The point is, none of these take much time or cost any money. If they do not fix the issue there are some references to the ignition system ballast and so on.

Onkel Udo