Hey 700 and 900 owners.

I drive an 87 245 (270K) and my wife has a 93 945 NA (118K). I almost never post over here cause...I can almost always fix her car buy reviewing the 7/9 FAQ. Is there any better resource for these cars? I doubt it. OD light started coming on intermittantly, resoldered the relay. Got a jerkyness in the steering, put in a magnefine filter. AC stopped working, resoldered climate control board joint. Intermittant no start, FI relay resolder. All that was done by me for a cost of like 25 bucks for the filter. It would have taken me hours/days to troubleshoot all that stuff. Thanks to everyone who authored the 7/9 FAQ. I use a lot of the info for my 245 too.

Which brings me to my point: the 245 is getting to the point where I'm putting more and more $ and time into it. I'm an airplane mechanic and the last thing I want to do is constantly work on my cars when I come home from work. So I was thinking maybe I could get my wife another 945 and I could take her car. BUT- I am very leary of the newer style engines. To me the Volvo B2XX engine was the main reason to own them. Am I being irrational? What was the last year of the B230 in any Volvo? I see 96 960s in the paper but that's the new engine right? Is there a general consensus on this? I noticed in one part of the 7/9 FAQ somebody kind of trashes the new 850 and V cars, or whatever they all are. I owned a real nice 855 GLT for like 3 months but...it just wasn't me. And it just didn't seem like a VOLVO to me. I mean I sold the thing so I obviously am not interested in those cars but I would like to get the latest model made with a B230 engine. Thanks for responding.

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It's Jim (in Hartford CT)