Hi,

I got problem starting my 850 94 242000 km since 4 days in a row. Each morning, I sit in the car, put the key in the ingnition switch, turn it to position II, wait 5 second and "try" to start the car. The battery seem to be ok because the crank is turning ok. I heard some explosion (not much) and after cranking for 10 second (with the gas pedal on the floor), explosion start to be more consistent and continuous (on the tach, it reach 300-400 rpm). And finaly, after 20 sec cranking the engine, it start but it's hard... I use havoline synthetic oil (10-30), new rotor and rotor cap installed last summer, new spark plug, fuel filter installed 2 years ago, I use anti freeze gas line stuff...

Anyone have an idea of what might be the problem?

Pardon me for my english,

TheBrute

check your spark.. mabye your coil is getting week.
And I would recommend replacing your sparkplugs.. and using the 5W30 oil as volvo recommends.. synthethic is a more durable longer laster oil but still has the same viscosity as normal oil

Is this a turbo. If so then maybe the intercooler is blocked with ice. Disconnect the upper intercooler hase and see if this allows it to start.

Thanks but it's not a turbo... :(

First off, why do you wait to turn the key? If your battery is fully charged then the car should crank fine immediately. Most engines will crank slower than normal when sitting overnight outside in cold weather. If you are running heavier weight oil, it will act like there is a bad miss when it does start and it will crank slowly. I know because like an idiot when I first started driving(and no one told me otherwise) I had a car that burned oil bad so I used 20w-50 racing oil to try and correct this. The result was--it was terribly hard to start, ran real slow at first and acted as if it were missing bad. Once it warmed up it was fine, but I caused it more harm than good by what I did at that time.

Second, is it possible that you might have some bad gas or water in your fuel? This would cause the lack of fire power.

You might also try using a lighter weight motor oil such as 5w-30 for winter use. It is what I do and have seen others comment on doing for winter and then run 10w-30 in the summer.

Hope this helps.

"First off, why do you wait to turn the key? If your battery is fully charged then the car should crank fine immediately"

***It is just to give a chance to all system to get up in power... When in position II, you can hear a sound coming from the dash and after 3 second you hear a click, that's why I wait a little before cranking***


"You might also try using a lighter weight motor oil such as 5w-30 for winter use."

I thought that synthetic oil would stay liquid even at very low temperature. Is'nt it ???

Having a 10w30 dyno compare to 10w30 syn is not the same things... I know that 5w30 is probably better but I want to prevent oil consumption.

TheBrute

Why do you have your "gas pedal to the floor?"

I know it's not very usual but it's just in case the cumbustion chambers get flooded... Also, I remark having better result while throttle open while trying to start when I have this problem.

Bruno

You just need a tuneup.

Your car had 150,000 miles on it.

It's approximately 8 years old.

You changed the spark plugs two years ago.

150,000 miles / 8 years = 18,750 miles per year.

2 years x 18,750 miles per year - 37,500 miles.

So, you've got spark plugs in there that are middle-aged, at best. Yeah, we're going to get a few responses here from people who have gotten 300,000 miles from their spark plugs, but you've got a higher-mileage car which is much harder on spark plugs.

Any you replaced the cap and rotor last summer. Is that the immediate, last summer, or the summer before that? Replace these also.

Just do the whole thing at one time and odds are you will lick this problem.

Thanks for your anwser, here the info:

spark plug installed last summer (summer 2002)
rotor and cap installed last summer (summer 2002)
fuel filter installed automn 2000


Bruno