I'll second the notion that volvo never finished
the 164.

I've had a 164 as my only transportation for the
past 2 years. I finally got my 144 back on the road
in the past 2 months but otherwise it has been my
only transportation for quite a while, including
several long (500+ miles) trips.

Mine is a carbed manual with no overdrive. It was
a wallowing overheating mess. The carbed cars are
prone to overheating because the single piece cast
iron manifold that gets pretty hot and tends to cook
the rear cylinders. I think the fuel injected cars
fixed this problem with a better intake manifold
design.

My 164's motor spins pretty fast on highways. I
think with my tires the car spins at 4000 at 80 so
it can get kinda loud inside. Fuel economy isn't
great either. I've got a couple of overdrive
transmissions but I've yet to actually put one in.

Others have said that the car kinda wallows around.
This is sort of true with the stock suspension,
especially if the suspension is worn out (and they
all are).

I replaced the shocks with bilsteins (hd front and
the cheap ones rear) and I installed an IPD sway
bar. My car handles very nicely; pretty neutral and
fun to drive hard and fast.

My car's motor is a little bit tired. I'm going
to put a rebuilt motor with a k-grind cam in soon.
That and an overdrive transmission should help things
quite a lot.

Anyhow, if you've gotten this far -- the 164 is a
fantastic car that needs to have a couple things
on it fixed. The suspension is tremendously improved
with an IPD sway bar and better shocks. Otherwise,
keep good oil in it and make sure that the cooling
system is up to snuff.
chris