93 850 GLT owned for eight months. No cold AC at all. Charged last week. So far, so good.

94 850 Turbo owned for a month. Previous owner told me to get the AC recharged every year. "Just one of those Volvo deals".

Mark in NJ

1996 65,000 miles base 5 speed with manual AC. Blows very cold. All original AC parts. Never serviced.

F*cking recirc. door stuck open, though. Need to reattach/fix actuator
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www.fidalgo.net/~brook4

94 850 turbo 120K miles...no problems
98 R wagon 45k miles...no problems

My mechanic told me the main reason the evaporator has problems is from the engine shifting due to the upper engine bushing/mount being bad...the engine moves and stresses the evaporator line causing leaks/failure.

All my engine mounts are IPD which have a lifetime warranty, nothing moves.

Stay Cool!

Spence

1996 855 GLT: 81k miles, original evaporator (bought used and not sure if it was replaced within the first 29k miles or not, have maintenance receipts for 29-79k miles), A/C blows cold, no problems (yet). But I did recently have the recirc and A/C lights simultaneously flashing (indicating a problem with the ECC), but that seems to have stopped.

1st: 3 yesrs and 44000 miles, replaced under warranty. 2nd: 4.5 years, 67000 miles, replaced by dealer at my expense. 3rd: 8 years, 94000 miles. Replaced at my expense by independent shop.

Gerald,

I live on the beach in Florida, have 1994 850 turbo with many mods, 125,000 miles. Here, accepted max life for factory aluminum evap is 40,000 miles. I finally got smart; put in all- copper unit. Even off the beach, with 75,000 on the clock, would expect your evap is dead.

Senilesurfer

Mine failed within the first year- no problems since then.

--
Nathan - 1995 Volvo 850 Turbo w/70K miles. Ask me, I've probably fixed it.

I just had the evaporator replaced @ 94k miles. AC was recharged in last July. My car is about 7 years old.

Ching-Ho Cheng
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1995 855 NA, Bilstein Shocks, K&N Filter

Our 95 required a re-charge a couple months ago. Now it is blowing
very cold air. I suspect it may need this every couple of years and
hope any leaks are slow.

i am on my second 850. the first one i had was a 95 GLT, and the A/C started acting up on me during the spring of 2000. i took it for a recharge which made it as cold as ever, but it didn't last for long. so i took it to a shop a few months later and spent $300something for a flush, replacement of the evaporator/dryer (and possibly another part?), and recharge. i'm now on my second 95 850, and the AC is not very cold at all. if it were a simple recharge i would take it in ASAP. i won't be surprised, however, if it's time to have some of the components replaced. in fact, i was about to put up a thread about this but then i saw you had already raised the issue.

I have a 1993 850glt with 170,000 km - A/C works great, no problems!

1994 850 Turbo - 131K miles, no problems with AC related to evaporator. (Now, the condensor is another story... (Grin).