I just picked up a 96 960 sedan, it's my first Volvo but I've been looking at them on & off for a couple years now. I wasn't able to test drive it due to the need for a new radiator so I had to settle for listening to it run for a couple of minutes. It has 180k and appears to have been well maintained (good looking fluids, all nice & shiney under the oil fill cap, no sludge or wear visable). There are some minor issues like stretched door handle cables, nonfunctional seat heaters, a mild pulse to the brakes and such like that. I'm more concerned with what sounds like a lifter not pumping up and a SEL with unknown codes stored up. Other than the valve thing making it sound like a helicopter it dives nice and has good power once the junkyard radiator was in. There's a slight bog when accelerating but I'm hoping that cleaning the throttle body will clear that up.

As strongly as it runs I don't think the engine is going to fail in the immediate future but I'm not sure if I have a bad lifter or a valve covered with gunk. Either way I can't imagine an engine that sounds like this having more than a few thousand miles left. I really don't want to put a top end on this thing, if this is going to be a significant problem I'd just as soon put in a 302 and call it done.

I really like the ride & feel of the car and it seems nice for the $1000 I paid for it, but it seems like I keep hearing the Ka-ching of the cash register with every paragraph of the B6304 FAQ that I read.

Advise & observations welcome

Dave
1996 964